April 17, 2009 Earworm

And after being a bit o' Debbie Downer "yesterday", I'll throw Franz Ferdinand's "Send Him Away" out there for a little Friday night getting ready groove. Naysayers be damned - they probably can't dance anyway, I love this album.

April 16, 2009 Earworm

"Someday Son", from John Wesley Harding's latest album, "Who Was Changed And Who Was Dead", is a perfect (a)side for all the tea bag activity of late. While the protesters seem unfocused in their theory and taking easy, yet careless, aim as they vilify, John makes it perfectly clear as to who and what is responsible for the disastrous state in which we find ourselves: it is us. Believing in our inalienable right to have, without having to put forth much effort, we have charged ahead with little interest in our own best interests which, in most cases, is now thirty cents on the dollar.

April 15, 2009 Earworm

Hopefully, you're all done with taxes and, perhaps, sitting down with a nice cup of tea...

I am so in awe of all this ado about "what" that I can not even find a beginning to make my ends meet. So, for the time being, I'll just sit and watch one political group bite on another political groups' protest even though the latter do not seem to have a good grasp on what it is they are protesting, gasp at the rampant racism and ignorant appropriation of Hitler, enjoy the puns in which heads Maddow, Cooper, and Olbermann are reveling, and turn up Mansun's "Taxloss" during the commercial breaks.

"We think you are stupid..."

April 14, 2009 Earworm

Today is all about The Beautiful South because today was Vance's birthday. We're few miles further down the roads we cruised back in 1992, windows open and stereo blasting, still soaking up the "Choke" album while drinking in "0898" and counting down the days until the boy was legal to drink. Today, as luck would have it, I drove along some of those very roads we once toured while singing along, and the songs, as always, sound just as good.

I'll go with "36D"...

see the video here

April 13, 2009 Earworm

The jury has finally reached a verdict and Phil Spector is guilty of second degree murder. By most accounts, he was not a good man: driven by demons and haunted by a family history of mental instability, the stories of his manipulations and eccentricities compile a very strong narrative for his eventual comeuppance. Yet, there still seems to be something missing in this, the final nail in both his and Lana Clarkson's coffin. While I think that Spector is guilty of much, and in the case for which he was tried, of something, I still have reasonable doubt as to how Clarkson's final hour played out and what, exactly, Phil's part in that gunshot was. The details do not matter to the victim when the outcome is death but the difference between manslaughter and murder mean everything for the defendant although, given Phil's litigious history, his appeals may mean that he, himself, dies before he ever spends a day in prison.

His legacy, of course, will live on regardless of these events. When I received a text telling me that the jury was about to announce it's verdict, an odd bit of timing found me listening to Shivaree's beautiful cover of "Paradise", a song Phil recorded with the Ronettes in 1965 and then left to languish while the kids at Red Bird made a classic Shangri-Las track with it. Ambrosia Parsley and company create a wide open oasis on their version with only the tympani passing judgement on her fantasy.

Spector Guilty of Second Degree Murder

LA jury finds Phil Spector guilty of murder
Mon Apr 13, 2009 5:24pm EDT



LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Music producer Phil Spector was found guilty on Monday of the murder of a Hollywood actress at his Los Angeles area home in 2003.

A Los Angeles jury returned the verdict against Spector, 69, after a five-month retrial. The first trial ended in a jury deadlock in September 2007.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant, Editing by Sandra Maler)