R.I.P.

It often comes in threes...

https://www.dollyparton.com/

https://www.timcurry.co.uk/

https://yayoi-kusama.jp/

Be Completely Yourself

The Poetry of Rock n' Roll: "Wanderer" by Angelo De Augustine

To observe National Poetry Month, I am featuring lyrics of rock n' roll or pop songs that also double as exquisite poetry. And this track from Angelo De Augustine called "Wanderer" is just that: the narrative is very intimate, like a stream of consciousness voice in someone's head...a narrative of unease, of something just not quite right steeped in a tale of missed love.

The song appeared on De Augustine's album "Tomb" which he described as "a motion towards positivity, addressing lost love, the worthwhile cost of honesty, and the ramifications, of regret. In the end...it isn’t about burying or hiding something away, it’s about opening the seal and letting something new emerge. It’s about telling people how you feel when you feel it, instead of burying everything over the span of years."

Wanderer
by Angelo De Augustine

Wanderer
Just like a song
That's been rubbed out above your left arm
Full of light
Eager eyes
For the adventure of a lifetime

She's on the run
Who you running from?
It can't be me cause I'm no one
Turtle dove
Carried my love
And left it on the moon to shine

I'll try
My best to find some peace of mind
But the light fades to black
And you don't know where the exit is at

Wanderer
Labyrinthine fern
Planted in your dilated mind
Evil talk
Heaven above
Protect her in her darkest night

Angelo De Augustine | Photo by Jess Collins

https://angelodeaugustine.com/

"Killing Floor" by Mondo Cozmo

It seems there is a slew of new music coming at us right now and this new track, "Killing Floor" by Mondo Cozmo (the nom de musique of singer-songwriter and record producer Josh Ostrander) is arresting...his music has been described as "chorus-heavy folk-rock" and the epic quality of this track highlights that.

(I hear you calling me, and I’m coming back to you)

She was singer in a punk band when she came for me
You found stability a redeeming thing
I remember when we left that party at that actor's house
You said sometimes the edges will not meet up
Something in their eyes when they walk away
Something in their eyes when you wait

Every little breath that you take is God
Every single smile that you made was yours
Everybody wants what they can't afford
Everybody dies on the killing floor
Everybody dies on the killing floor

(I hear you calling me, and I’m coming back to you)

You are the sunlight on a perfect day
You love the love songs that I won't sing
I remember when you said scatter me across the streets
On the Lower East Side of mansions and time machines
Something in your eyes when you walked away
Something in their eyes now when you wait

Every little breath that you take is God
Every single smile that you made was yours
Everybody wants what they can't afford
Everybody dies on the killing floor
Everybody dies on the killing floor

(I hear you calling me, and I’m coming back to you)

https://www.mondocozmo.com/

"All American Queen" by Ben Platt

For Pride Month, here is the wonderful Ben Platt (previously here) singing "All American Queen."

Yes Ben, here's to the boys with doll collections and pink bedroom walls. I wish them safety and love and life.

https://www.benplattmusic.com/

"Delphinium Blue" by Cassandra Jenkins

This new song, "Delphinium Blue" by Cassandra Jenkins is just lovely. The lyrics are absolute poetry...and the music and her voice are perfect compliments to a story about longing and love. Her newest release "My Light, My Destroyer" is out July 12, 2024.

I saw I missed your call
Sorry for not picking up
I got the job
At the flower shop

I sweep the floors but I’m talking to you
I see your eyes in the delphinium too
I’ve become a servant
To their blue

Chin up
Stay on task
Wash the windows
Count the cash

I picked up another couple of shifts
I hear your voice when I’m closing
The nights fall like thorns
Off the roses

All around me the narcissus bloom
I picture the sun hitting you
The air is filled
With their perfume

Chin up
Stay on task
Wash the windows
Count the cash
Cut the stems
To make them last
Keep it cool
Behind the glass

The air is filled
With their perfume

https://cassandrajenkins.com/

Now It's Time For You To Meet Loren Kramar

Here is Loren Kramar's new song "Gay Angels" from his brand new release "Glovemaker" available now. His voice, his sensibility, his lyrics...exquisite. And the build of this song is wrenching.

There’s always been a voice
Sometimes smooth
Sometimes squawking
Sometimes screaming

There’s always been a scene
Where velvet curtains should’ve been
And trained actors instead of me
Reframing boyhood dramedy
I’ve seen mad fathers
Working impressions of snow angels in driveways
To stop sad mothers from leaving and speeding away

I found shy brothers
Painting bruises on green eyes
Before carpools
Drowning shy brothers
Peeping through inches of closed open doors

I’ve seen gay angels
Sleeping with eyes open
Staring right through the heart of dreams
Landing square on the face of God
Show me one difference between me and love

There’s always been a voice
With some clever little line
Maybe half of the time
What’s in a mind?

There’s always been a scene
With some perfect little trap door beneath
Well, that’s for me
What’s for me?

I’ve seen gay angels
Sleeping with eyes open
Staring right through the heart of dreams
Landing square on the face of God
Show me one difference between me and love
What’s the difference between me and love?

I said it cos I meant it
You heard it or you didn’t
Do you hear it? Do you hear it? Do you hear it?
There’s no breaking, only bending
Been a lifetime of defending
No more pretending
No more pretending

I’ve seen gay angels
Sleeping with eyes open
Staring right through the heart of dreams
Landing square on the face of God
Show me one difference between me and love
What’s the difference between me and love?

Me and love
Me and love
Me and love

And this song, "Hollywood Blvd" captures a certain naïve obsession with fame and glamour for its own sake that is both sweet and pitiable.

Welcome to Warner Brothers Studio Tour
If you look to your left in a minute
In a half a minute now
He's coming over
Everybody say hello to the director of the movie

Hello everybody
My name’s Loren Kramar
I’m the director of the movie that your tour guide’s talking about

How do you like LA?
I hope you love it
Come back now, ya hear?
Haha!
See you all later

Back to you notepad
I’m gonna have my way with you
Come on pencil
Let’s show notepad what we can do

Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3 through 10
11 through 20
21 through 50
End
Fade out
Fade out

Drive me to Hollywood Blvd
I want to see my fallen star
Drive me to Hollywood Blvd
I've got hands and feet to put in the concrete

Move over
Move over
I'm coming through
I’m coming through
Only joking but please get out of the way
Today’s a very special day
I, of all people
Am getting a star
On Hollywood Blvd.
On Hollywood Blvd.

On the Walk of Fame!
On the Walk of Fame!
Do you see it, everybody?
On the Walk of Fame
The Walk of Fame!
The Walk of Fame!
Who wants to live forever?
I do!
Who wants to live forever?
I do!
Who wants to live forever?
I do!
Who wants to live forever?
I do!

https://lorenkramar.com/

rue David Bowie, 13th Arr., Paris, France

Yesterday, on what would have David Bowie's 77th birthday, the city of Paris unveiled a renamed street in his honor. The newly christened rue David Bowie is in the 13th arrondissement, between the Jardin des Plantes botanical gardens and the National Library, and between two modern office buildings that include the headquarters of news outlets Le Monde and L’Obs. If you want to visit, the nearest Metro station looks to be Gare d'Austerlitz.

AP Photo | Christophe Ena

AP Photo | Christophe Ena

R.I.P. Melanie

Singer-songwriter Melanie has died at 76. She performed at Woodstock and sang some of the most memorable songs of the period. Songs from my youth...

R.I. P. Melanie and thanks for your music. 

https://www.melaniesafka.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Acne

Acne's director Jonny Johansson has always loved denim and the rebellious, grunge-y aspect it can present. So for his FW '24-'25 collection, presented via a lookbook instead of a runway show at Paris Fashion Week, denim shows up a little bit but mostly we see a sort of retro-contemporary eclectic look that incorporates a hyper-version of a shearling-lined Ugg boot. Pants that look ripped, belted and hung with chains are actually a trompe l’oeil effect, simply printed onto cotton. In fact, all of the embellishments on bottoms feature that treatment. And it is all photographed on shape-shifting, genre-defying musician and artist Yves Tumor (previously here) whose own rock-punk-Goth-funk-New Wave-Glam aesthetic dovetails perfectly with this collection.

https://www.acnestudios.com/
https://yvestumor.info/

BEAUTY: Man--Donovan Frankenreiter

I just came across these photos of a young surfer-musician Donovan Frankenreiter in 2002 taken by Sasha Eisenman. Wow...I love me some California hippie dude vibes...

https://www.donavonf.com/#!
https://www.sashaeisenman.com/

Kate Bush In The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame!

Congratulations Kate! For your incredible imagination, exquisite compositions, and contributions of great power and beauty to the world, you deserve this honor.

https://www.katebush.com/

"Know" by Jungstötter

Jungstötter (the nom de musique of German singer-songwriter Fabian Altstötter) is now on my radar. Frontman of the band Sizarr, he released his second solo album called "One Star," on April 28th, 2023. The bold experimental sound is arresting and the visuals have a near-Matthew Barney feeling.

Sunrise sun is out, late against me
I’ve known my contours on this body

Stoke a chill down lines of heat I’ve known
Bordering your body

I’ve known
A bloated figment crushing mine
I’ve known
Until your hands touched my body

I’ve known
But who am I to dislodge dreams
I’ve known
Right away

What are all these skies?
Brass and copper plates
But a dress mid-flight
(Stroke)
Across your face

Pour your lines out
Land against me
I’ll know the orders of your body

I’ll know
All of the seasons of your face
I’ll know
The scriptures of your body

What are all these skies?
Brass and copper plates
But a dress mid-flight
(Stroke)
Across your face

As the wheels take flight
Heavens rearrange
You inside their lights
Haven’t changed

Jungstötter - Photo by Clemens Schmiedbauer

https://www.jungstotter-one-star.com/

Happy Birthday "Diva" by Annie Lennox!

Following a phenomenal career and string of hits while fronting Eurythmics, Annie Lennox released her first solo album, "Diva," on April 6, 1992...THIRTY ONE YEARS AGO TODAY. It's hard to fathom it has been that long. So let's celebrate the anniversary of this stellar collection of songs. There's not a bad one in the bunch; it is literally a perfect album. Listen to the songs below but also marvel at the sheer emotive power of Lennox. She is simply mesmerizing to watch. All the videos are great but I particularly like "Little Bird" with all her past incarnations sharing the stage.

Thank you, Annie, for all the music!

https://www.annielennox.com/

"Summertime" by Joni Mitchell

I am absolutely blown away by Joni Mitchell's (previously here) voice in this excerpt from her all-star concert tribute when she received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize. It sounds as if, miraculously, she has shaved thirty years off her voice...and considering the harrowing health issues she has been through the last several years, this is especially wonderful to hear. Long live Joni!

PBS stations will broadcast the concert — “Joni Mitchell: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song” — at 9 p.m. ET on Friday, March 31 (check local listings) and on PBS.org and the PBS App as part of the co-produced Emmy Award-winning music series. It will also be broadcast to U.S. Department of Defense locations around the world via the American Forces Network.

Mitchell got her start performing in coffee shops and nightclubs in her native Canada and would go on to become an icon among music makers, setting a new standard marrying music and lyrics. With such songs as “Both Sides, Now,” “Chelsea Morning,” “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Woodstock” and “The Circle Game,” Mitchell became a household name.

Mitchell redefined the role of women musicians. She oversaw all aspects of her albums, including songwriting, arrangements, performance, production and artwork. Her sound crosses musical genres from folk to jazz, classical and rock, and she continues to inspire her fellow artists.

Mitchell is also a talented painter, creating the cover art for many of her albums, and her visual art will be featured prominently in the tribute concert, along with her music.

“I’m a creative person. I like the creative process,” Mitchell said. “I’ve been a painter all my life. I’ve been a musician most of my life. If you can paint with a brush, you can paint with words. … It’s a great honor to join the pantheon of recipients.”

Bestowed in recognition of the legendary songwriting team of George and Ira Gershwin, the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song is the nation’s highest award for influence, impact and achievement in popular music. The honoree is selected by the Librarian of Congress in consultation with a board of scholars, producers, performers, songwriters and other music specialists. Previous recipients are Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Sir Paul McCartney, songwriting duo the late Burt Bacharach and the late Hal David, Carole King, Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, Smokey Robinson, Tony Bennett, Emilio and Gloria Estefan, Garth Brooks, and Lionel Richie.

https://jonimitchell.com/

Bono and The Edge At The Tiny Desk

On the heels of St. Patrick's Day, let's check in with a pair of very famous Irishmen: Bono and The Edge (if you have been living under a rock, they are part of a little band called U2 who have a had a few hit songs here and there) dropped in to the Tiny Desk at NPR--yesterday, on St. Pat's Day--to perform a low-key, charming set.

Tiny Desk says: "The performance was a preview of U2's new album, Songs Of Surrender, featuring stripped-down versions of songs from across the band's catalog. To help pull off several reimagined songs from the 2000 album All That You Can't Leave Behind, Bono and The Edge invited a teen choir from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., to join them. During rehearsals, Bono told the students to think of 'Beautiful Day' as the kind of 'post-drinking' singalong you'd bellow with friends after leaving a bar. He then quickly realized none of them are old enough to drink, before feigning a heart attack."

"Songs of Surrender," 40 U2 songs reimagined and re-recorded is out now.
https://www.u2.com/

Just watched...

..."Moonage Daydream," the David Bowie film directed by Brett Morgen.

As a life-long David Bowie fan, I was looking forward to this film but was not quite prepared for the form it took, and director Morgen has accomplished quite a feat of filmmaking. It's not a bio-pic (no actor plays Bowie), and it doesn't quite feel like a documentary either (there are no talking-head interviews with contemporaries or friends or family of Bowie, and no review of his life)--yet, fittingly, it is the first feature to be fully authorized by the Bowie estate. But if it's not those things, then what is it?

As its name suggests, this is less of a film and much more of a dream, an hallucination, a prayer. Presenting images and songs somewhat in chronological order, the only voice for a narrative is Bowie's own. Through a mix of what sound like pensive recordings Bowie made himself and press interviews, we hear him musing on profound, spiritual, and existential questions. Of course anyone who ponders such questions feels those questions deeply, through their soul. And that is where the impulse, the elan to create lies. It is a disarming and unexpectedly intimate experience listening to Bowie speak this way, and reflect on how his own spirit and mind evolved by allowing himself to evolve as an artist. And all while watching a swirling kaleidoscope of Bowie's many looks and characters--including a glimpse into the Bowie archive of five million different items, paintings, drawings, recordings, photographs, films ("The Man Who Fell To Earth," "Just A Gigolo," Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence," "The Hunger," and rare clips of Bowie on stage in the Broadway production of "The Elephant Man"), and journals--along with relevant stock footage and film clips from sources as varied as the 1922 "Nosferatu," the 1928 "The Passion of Joan of Arc," Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel's 1929 short masterpiece "Un Chien Andalou," "The Wizard of Oz," "2001: A Space Odyssey" (not "Oddity"), and "A Clockwork Orange."

And naturally we get to hear Bowie's music but what struck me was the mash-ups of songs with studio versions, live versions, remixes...and the juxtapositions between songs, all beautifully produced by longtime Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti.
The result is a glorious, impressionistic reverie of color, shape, and sound...or "Sound and Vision"...

Recommend? Yes, absolutely. Especially if you are a Bowie fan. And if you are unfamiliar (and, perhaps through no fault of your own, have been living under a rock), you won't get a definitive account of the man and his life...just sit back and take it in. Feel him and experience who he was and is. If you miss it playing at a theatre, not to worry: it will be streaming this coming spring of 2023 on HBO MAX.

https://www.moonagedaydream.film/home/
https://www.davidbowie.com/

"Fascination" by Tamino

Belgian-Egyptian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tamino has released a lovely new song called "Fascination." He is new-to-me although he has been around for several years now, apparently being endlessly compared to Jeff Buckley.

The video is evocative of 70s films like "Two-Lane Black Top" (previously here) and he even looks like a young James Taylor from that film, but his beauty also reminds me a bit of Timothée Chalamet.

Tamino by Karim Sadli

https://www.taminomusic.com/

"Moonage Daydream"

Filmmaker Brett Morgen debuted his film, "Moonage Daydream," a meditation on who and what David Bowie was at Cannes and it has garnered some rave reviews. I can't wait to see it!

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian seems to sum it up: "An 140-minute shapeshifting epiphany-slash-freakout leading to the revelation that, yes, we’re lovers of David Bowie and that is that."

"Moonage Daydream" will be released in theaters domestically by Neon in September; Universal Pictures Content Group will handle international distribution. HBO and HBO Max will stream the documentary next year.

https://www.davidbowie.com/

Happy Birthday, Iva Davies of Icehouse!

A very happy birthday to Mr. Iva Davies, founder, lead singer, multi-instrumentalist, and immensely talented songwriter of the Australian band Icehouse.

I am feeling great love and nostalgia for this 1980 song from their debut album. Not only is Icehouse the name of the group, having changed it from their original name Flowers, but the song itself is also titled "Icehouse." Although Icehouse was never truly seen as a New Romantic band (yet they were tagged with the catch-all New Wave title by some), I sure felt they belonged with other fantastic New Romantic groups like Ultravox. The "Icehouse" song and their debut album (as well as their sophomore album "Primitive Man") was an atmospheric, synth-heavy affair with a marvelous use of texture. The accompanying video resembles New Romantic classics like Ultravox's "The Thin Wall" and "The Voice," and even Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes" and "Draw Of The Cards," all directed by Australian film director Russell Mulcahy. Follow this haunting, touching narrative that beautifully supports the chilling, profound lyrics and aching, moving melody.

It's always cold inside the icehouse
Though the rivers never freeze
There's a girl outside the icehouse
I can see her clearly though the trees

Now she's dreaming of a new love
And she hopes he'll be there soon
She's got so long to wait for him
Because he needs another year to get there

She'll wait another lifetime out there

There's no love inside the icehouse

The devil lives inside the icehouse
At least that's what the old ones say
They say He came along time ago
He came here in the winter snow
Now it's colder every day

But she's still dreaming through the summer
And she's hoping through the spring
She says she's got no time for winter nights
She doesn't notice as the days grow darker
She can't remember getting any older

There's no love inside the icehouse

 
Now she's dreaming of a new love
And she hopes he'll be there soon
She says she's got no time for winter nights
She doesn't notice as the days grow darker
She can't remember getting any older

There's no love inside the icehouse
There's no love inside the icehouse
The icehouse

Happy Birthday, Iva! Thanks for sharing decades of your music with us.

https://icehouse-ivadavies.com/