Pazar 5 Şub 2006, 2:45
I guess I've been busy or something. Making the most delicious donuts is hard work! I downloaded quite a bit of eMusic recently, and boy I'm glad: Miriam Makeba-Keep Me In Mind, which for some reason won't show up on Last.fm. Acadie, which I had in my possession a CD of at some point and must have lost. More Yo La Tengo and some Friends of Dean Martinez. Also grabbed some freebies from The Samuel Jackson Five's website.
The Miriam Makeba is a real treat. It's an 1970 album with some great covers, and has an Afro-Soul, Otis Redding meets the Meters flavor. A really uplifting album…I've had a couple of her albums for a while, but hadn't recently listened. Then, the other day, I decided to watch "When We Were Kings" - the documentary on the historic fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman which took place along with an amazing music festival, in 1974 in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). Check out the soundtrack: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118147/soundtrack WOW! In the film, the director uses superimposed footage of Makeba singing Amampondo, to represent the "woman with the trembling hands" that a shaman predicted would visit Foreman (and prove to be his undoing). She does this un-nerving breathing thing in the song, holding her hands out alongside her face (trembling!) and…well, go rent it - it's a fantastic film. Foreman's denim alone is worth the price of admission.
Ragie put together a really snappy radio.blog that had The Samuel Jackson Five in it, as well as a bunch of other quality bands. I heard Postmans Joke and now I'm scrambling to figure out where I can get their albums here in America's second largest city. I think I also liked them for their name. Long ago in a former life, I had a short-lived band, "The Gene Hackman." We were unknown, and for good reason.
I'm someone who likes to mix his sweet with his savory, so the above combo of music doesn't seem that bizarre to me. And after seeing some of the wacky charts of others here on Last.fm, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. I'm amazed at how well Yo La Tengo segues into Nick Drake and Erik Satie.
One more thing: We watched Love Liza tonight. It stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman (and is directed by his talented brother Gordy) and has a wonderful soundtrack, featuring Will Oldham, Jeff Buckley and others. Totally sad and beautiful film - rent that too, for a truly nutty double feature.