Listening to: Rebirth Brass Band

 

It's kind of embarrassing to admit now, but my first extended exposure to New Orleans-style brass band music came ... via a bunch of white guys from Madison, Wisconsin.

During my early days in Lawrence, I made friends with a guy named Joe -- a little older than I was, a lot more hip, and fun to hang around. One evening after work we went and got dinner, then walked around Massachusetts Street looking for something to do. We walked by the Jazzhaus, saw a group called the "Youngblood Brass Band" was playing, and decided why not? The cover charge was something like $3 -- maybe a little more, but not vastly more.

These were the aforementioned white guys from Madison, Wisconsin. The tuba player was particularly talented, using his giant horn to spin out turntable-style sounds while the snare drummer doubled as the band's MC. And what can I say? I'd heard brass band music before -- I'd gotten to see the Dirty Dozen brass band play maybe three songs a few years before, and I enjoyed it, and I should've appreciated what I was seeing more, but it didn't take then. The night I saw Youngblood, it took. 

A few days later, I was at a record store, chatting with a friend about how much I'd enjoyed the concert when a stranger approached. "If you think you like brass band music," try this out. He shoved a new CD copy of "Rebirth Brass Band: Live at the Maple Leaf" into my hands. Some meetings are serendipitous I guess. I bought the CD.

And then I was amazed. I probably kept the disc in my player for a month. The music was raw and energetic -- the recording was live, made in what sounded like a party. The songs went on forever. It was all new to me. I loved it.

I'm listening to them now, loving the music and feeling regrets. I always meant to get to New Orleans someday -- to hear them at the Maple Leaf, to hear Kermit Ruffins at Vaughn's. Saw Rebirth here in Lawrence a couple of years ago, and they were great, but they played at the Lied Center -- a big stage, the kind of place build like an opera house with balcony seats -- and that wasn't really their milieu. New Orleans is. I thought I'd get around to it sooner or later. But now I'm not sure there's going to be a later, at least as far as travel and live music are concerned. I hope there is. Until then, I have the recordings.

Bag O' Books: MOBY DICK

A spoiler or two follows, but kids: The book is 170 years old. It's not my fault if you get spoiled.

There are some works of art that I am slow to getting to because the weight of their reputation makes them seem -- forgive me, teachers -- like homework. I didn't watch "The Godfather" for years for precisely that reason: It just seemed like too much. Then I watched it and fell in an obsessive kind of love.

"Moby Dick" turns out to be a similar experience. I didn't read it for a long time, because in addition to the weight of the book's reputation, there was the sheer damn size of the actual physical novel. It's not small! But the pandemic slowed my life down a little, and I have resolved to tackle some works of literature I'd skipped before.

Things about "Moby Dick" that I didn't expect:

* That it would be so gay. 

Listening to: An explanation

I'm going to make this an occasional series, I think, about whatever album I happen to be listening to when the mood strikes. I can't really write about music -- it's like dancing about math -- but I can describe how music intersected with my life and made me feel, so that's what I'll do. It's my blog! Would love to hear your own experiences with the artists I mention. 

Listening to: Sharon Jones

 

I never quite made my life match up to getting the full Sharon Jones experience.

My friend Josh Powers told me about her back in the mid-aughts, had been to a couple of her shows in Lawrence, Kansas and said they were amazing. I found my to to one of her albums and could not believe her albums had been made during this century.

When the time came that she visited Lawrence again, my wife and I got tickets. But Jo was pregnant, battling pretty severe morning sickness that lasted all day long. We made an attempt to go to and enjoy the show -- I remember Jones was wearing a skimpy dress, and worked the stage hard, shimmying and shaking all over the stage, and even then I knew I'd never have that much energy again -- but Jo was miserably ill, so we left after a half-dozen songs or so.

I remember being cranky that Amy Winehouse got famous using Jones' backup band.

There was one other opportunity to listen to Sharon Jones for me. It was Philly, 2011, and we were broke and barely employed. But Jones was playing a free show on Broad Street that spring -- it would've been a huge crowd, we probably would've been miserable. But as it happened, we didn't get to go. I was in the hospital, septic with infection and vomiting green bile. The next day I had a surgery that saved my life -- the first of three I would have that year. I've been broken since then. But I lived and got to see my son grow up.

And another opportunity to go see Sharon Jones live -- in what, I gather, was her element -- never presented itself before she died. 

Right now, I'm listening to her album, "Naturally," and ... I still can't believe it was made during this century.

Listening to: Lou Reed

I first really encountered Lou Reed in high school, about the time he released the "New York" album. A friend -- a Spanish exchange student -- lent me the cassette tape, so I took home and listened on my miniature boom box (known at the time, somewhat egregiously, as a "ghetto blaster" because we didn't quite realize how racist that was) and decided the album wasn't really for me. But Reed's use of the term "Statue of Bigotry" in the song "Dirty Boulevard" stuck in my head for years after.

(Actually, I didn't know it at the time, but my FIRST first encounter with Reed was the Honda scooter commercial in 1985 that used "Walk on the Wild Side," which is a really weird song for a commercial.) 

I gave Lou a second chance in the late 1990s, thanks to the BMG music club -- and discovered I really loved his 70s stuff. (For music snobs of a certain age, "best of" compilations are thought of as belonging to the newbs and amateurs. Guilty as charged, I suppose.) I heard songs like "Satellite of Love" and "Perfect Day" for the first time and was blown the hell away.

The CD got lost somewhere along the way. But a couple of years ago I found another "best of" collection featuring a lot of the same songs -- I mean, they really were his best songs -- on vinyl. I am listening to it now and I'm feeling kind of content.

What both sides need to understand about Amy Coney Barrett's quote about faith

 So I keep seeing this quote from possible Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett being bandied about the Twitters:

For my friends on the left: This quote, in and of itself, is not proof that Amy Coney Barrett intends to establish a theocracy. It's pretty standard stuff for many practicing Christians! Even people who do their jobs in completely normal ways will talk about how they try to do their best for the glory of God. The better tactic is to focus on her actual legal philosophy -- she has a track record of rulings you know -- and talk about how that might be at odds with the American common good.

For my friends on the right: People being afraid of this quote doesn't mean they're "bigoted" against faith, per se. They're worried about how that faith will manifest itself in her rulings -- just as, presumably, people like Robert George are hopeful that her faith will manifest itself in her rulings. Clothing yourself in the garments of bigotry victim might feel good, but it's not all that accurate.

I'm no fan of Barrett, precisely because of how I think she will rule as a judge. And it's impossible at this point for everybody not to assume that the other side is acting in bad faith, I realize. But that assumption becomes its own kind of bad faith.

Coronavirus Diary: Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

My big regret from the last decade or so of my life is that I've spent too much time living in my head and in cyberspace and not enough in real life with real people, and now that it's better to live in cyberspace than in real places, I find I'm going a bit stir-crazy. I miss tangible experiences.