Laurie Anderson Mister Heartbreak

Laurie Anderson was the partner of Lou Reed before he died..I ave heard of her many times before but never give her a chance, why? I dont know. But recently because of the death od Lou Reed I have heard some tunes in a special program of John in the Morning (KEXP Seatle). It was so nice to discover her and all her discography. I listen to her over and over again! I really like her. In the morning in my way to work i am listening to Laurie Anderson. Here it is a review of this record..but i didnt know who wrote it..anyway! Enjoy!

Probably the most pop-accessible of Laurie Anderson's recorded work, Mister Heartbreak features a number of stunning luminaries on the cutting edge of popular music at the time. Striking guitar work by King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew permeates this disc -- notably on "Sharkey's Day" -- punchy and angular. The production and bass work from Bill Laswell is superb. Peter Gabriel -- at the time still coming off the buzz of his departure from Genesis -- is featured in a duet with Anderson on "Excellent Birds." There is a heavy reliance on early-'80s synthesizers which would normally be very off-putting, but here they are executed well. Nowhere does the music slip into irreparable '80s cliché; it is still an entertaining listen. Lyrics are typical of Anderson' work -- complex, literate, provocative, difficult to fully comprehend. Haunting "Gravity's Angel" borrows imagery from Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Spoken word delivery on "Sharkey's Night" is given by the legendary William S. Burroughs. This is a very satisfying listen and a great intro for those unfamiliar with Anderson's work.

You can hear some of the songs here.

Sharkey's Day by Laurie Anderson

Sun's coming up. Like a big bald head.
Poking up over the grocery store.
It's Sharkey's day. It's Sharkey's day today.
Sharkey wakes up and Sharkey says: There was this man...
And there was this road...And if only I could remember these dreams...
I know they're trying to tell me...something.
Ooooeee. Strange dreams.(Strange dreams). Oh yeah.

And Sharkey says: I turn around, it's fear. I turn around aagain
And it's love. Oh yeah. Strange dreams.
And the little girls sing:Oooee Sharkey.
And the manager says: Mr. Sharkey? He's not at his desk right now.
Could I take a message?
And the little girls sing:Oooeee Sharkey. He's Mister Heartbreak.
They sing: Oooeee Sharkey. Yeah. He's Mister Heartbreak.

And Sharkey says: All of nature talks to me. If I could just
figure out what it was trying to tell me. Listen!
Trees are swinging in the breeze. They're talking to me.
Insects are rubbing their legs together.
They're all talking. They're talking to me. And short animals-
They're bucking up on their hind legs. Talking. Talking to me.
Hey! Look out! Bugs are crawling up my legs!
You know? I'd rather see this on TV. Tones it down.
And Sharkey says: I turn around, it's fear.
I turn around again, and it's love.
Nobody knows me. Nobody knows my name.

And Sharkey says: All night long I think of those little planes up there.
Flying around. UYou can't even see them. They're specks!
And they're full of tiny people. Going places.
And Sharkey says: You know? I bet they could all land
on the head of a pin.
And the little girls sing: Ooooeee. Sharkey!
He's Mister Heartbreak. They sing: Oooeee. That Sharkey!
He's a slow dance on the edge of the lake. He's a whole landscape
gone to seed. He's gone wild! He's screeching tires
on an oil slick at midnight on the road to Boston a long time ago.
And Sharkey says: Lights! Camera! Action! TIMBER!
At the beginning of the movie, they know they have to find each other.
But they ride off in opposite directions.

Sharkey says: I turn around, it's fear.
I turn around again, and it's love.
Nobody knows me. Nobody knows my name.

You know? They're growing mechanical trees.
They grow to their full height. And then they chop themselves down.
Sharkey says: All of life comes from some strange lagoon.
It rises up, it bucks up to it's full height from a boggy swamp
on a foggy night. It creeps into your house. It's life! It's life!
I turn around, it's fear. I turn around again, and it's love.
Nobody knows me. Nobody knows my name.

Deep in the heart of darkest America. Home of the brave.
Ha! Ha! Ha! You've already paid for this. Listen to my heart beat.

And the little girls sing: Oooeee Sharkey. He's a slow dance
on the edge of the lake. They sing:Ooooeeee. Sharkey.
HEe's Mister Heartbreak.
Paging Mr. Sharkey. White courtesy telephone please.
And Sharkey says: I turn around, it's fear.
I turn around again, and it's love.
And the little girls sing:Ooooeee Sharkey. Yeah.
On top of Old Smokey all covered with snow.
That's where I wanna, that's where I'm gonna
That's where I'm gonna go.

Sabotaje, el contraataque de la derecha fascista.

 Canciller venezolano: Gobierno sigue la batalla contra sabotaje opositor

El presidente Nicolás Maduro calificó el extraño apagón que afectó a su país este lunes como una “desconexión absolutamente extraña”, producto del sabotaje que emprende la derecha fascista contra el “gigante pueblo venezolano”.

El ministro de Energía Eléctrica de Venezuela, Jesse Chacón, reveló que el extraño apagón que afectó a gran parte del territorio, en horas de la noche de este lunes, fue provocado, luego de que las autoridades encontrarán un “conductor” de una línea eléctrica desprendido en una de las torres del sistema interconectado nacional.
El responsable del sector eléctrico venezolano destacó que la acción fue premeditada, ya que tuvo lugar en la Torre 5 y 6 del sistema, ubicada entre San Gerónimo y La Horqueta (centro), un sector clave de la línea 765 que distribuye el servicio de energía a toda la región centro occidental del país.
De igual manera, Chacón aseguró que en la ciudad capital, Caracas, el servicio ha sido restituido en más de un 90 por ciento. Agregó que en el centro del país la restitución del alcanza el 40 por ciento, en la región andina el 60 por ciento, en el estado Zulia (oeste) un 30 por ciento y en los Llanos venezolanos también un 30 por ciento.
Asimismo, alertó que en horas de la mañana de este mismo lunes un grupo de activistas de la oposición venezolana se concentró ante la sede de la Corporación Eléctrica Nacional (Corpoelec), “exigiendo que no ocurrieran hechos como el que luego ocurrió”, un suceso que, afirmó, le causa sospecha.
Por su parte, el presidente venezolano, Nicolás Maduro, calificó el suceso como una “desconexión absolutamente extraña”, producto del sabotaje que emprende la derecha fascista contra el “gigante pueblo venezolano”.
“Pido perdón y disculpa al pueblo de Venezuela por esta arremetida de la derecha fascista”, enfatizó Maduro, quien recordó también que, justamente, dos años atrás -el 2 de diciembre de 2002- esa misma derecha dio inicio a un paro petrolero que paralizó al país durante dos meses y medio.
Por otro lado, el Mandatario también denunció que en tres puntos del país se pretendieron realizar “guarimbas” (protestas violentas) al producirse el extraño apagón, motivo por el cual indicó que los organismos de seguridad del Estado están en emergencia.
"He puesto en emergencia a las Fuerzas Armadas para proteger al pueblo venezolano ante posibles nuevos ataques de la derecha", afirmó el jefe de Estado.
Durante un mensaje ofrecido desde el Palacio de Miraflores, en Caracas, el Presidente reiteró que la derecha opositora continúa ejecutando planes para tratar de desestabilizar el país, ante la proximidad de las elecciones municipales de este 8 de diciembre, unos comicios que subrayó “no se suspenderán”.

El jefe de la diplomacia venezolana, Elías Jaua, advirtió que el sabotaje no va a impedir que el Gobierno bolivariano continúe realizando su trabajo. Afirmó que la Revolución Bolivariana está enfrentando a un enemigo poderoso que no va a descansar hasta conseguir su objetivo.

El ministro para las Relaciones Exteriores de Venezuela, Elías Jaua, manifestó este miércoles que el Gobierno del presidente Nicolás Maduro seguirá dando la batalla ante las pretensiones de la oposición venezolana de sabotear el sistema eléctrico en Venezuela para desestabilizar al país.
Aseguró que dicho plan está siendo dirigido desde las filas de la derecha venezolana, pero advirtió que dicho sabotaje no va a impedir que el Gobierno bolivariano continúe realizando su trabajo.
“El Gobierno sigue en la batalla, lo que ocurrió fue el resultado de una estrategia opositora de desestabilización” precisó el jefe de la diplomacia venezolana, quien afirmó que la Revolución bolivariana está enfrentando a un enemigo poderoso que no va a descansar hasta conseguir su objetivo.
Enfatizó que “frente a las dificultades se cumplirá el mandato del Comandante Hugo Chávez el 8 de diciembre, que es seguir batallando contra las formas de sabotaje” para garantizar la paz y la estabilidad que necesita el pueblo de esta nación suramericana.
El pasado martes, en horas del medio día se registró una falla eléctrica en la línea 765 que afectó la trasmisión de energía hacia las líneas del Centro-Occidente de Venezuela. El Gobierno de Venezuela trabajó de forma inmediata para restablecer el servicio en todo el país.
Al respecto, el presidente venezolano Nicolás Maduro, declaró que se trató de un ensayo de Golpe eléctrico en el país organizado por la derecha venezolana. Dijo que el objetivo fue para sabotear el triángulo de la línea de distribución para afectar la energía de la mayor parte del país.
Adelantó que forma parte de un plan llamado “tic tac” que se estuvo activando con 72 horas de antelación, al cual le estuvieron haciendo un seguimiento cercano.
Felicitó al pueblo venezolano por su actitud, lealtad, fortaleza, conciencia y claridad al asumir con tranquilidad y los invitó a estar alertas por este sabotaje que -a su juicio- está siendo pagado por el norte para callar a Venezuela.

Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood

I really like to listen to Lee Hazlewood singing with Nancy Sinatra! I find very nice moments when I listen to theis songs. This record is a gem, it is very sweet, these guys were pretty cool! I love this guy's moustache!Don't miss it.

 

I bring here a brief biography of Le Hazlewood. Interesting stories from the blog www.soundblab.com


When asked about his song writing craft for an interview disc to promote his 2002 record For Every Solution There's a Problem (a collection of previously unreleased material), the late, great producer, arranger, independent record label entrepreneur, DJ, raconteur, occasional actor, singer and self proclaimed 'Ol' Grey-Haired Sonofabitch' Lee Hazlewood opined; "I think the songs, and I'll probably never confess this again, the other writings, like the book coming out now (his semi fictitious autobiography The Pope's Daughter) and all those sort of things, I think they're all written like 1932 or 1933 pulp. That was the cheap five-cent things you bought with all the mysteries in them or love stories in or anything like that. I think all the songs are all that way to me... I don't know why you can't write something serious for the verse and funny for the chorus, or the other way around."

Hazlewood's songs are utterly distinctive - poetic country/semi-psychedelic loungecore compositions, laced with lashings of dark wit, wrong-side-of-the-tracks heartbreak, sentimentality and potent esoteric imagery, all delivered in Hazlewood's inimitable sonorous baritone. Numbers by Hazlewood have long captivated performers of such pre-eminence as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley and Waylon Jennings.
Since the eerie 12 inch single cover of Hazlewood's duet with his most famous singing partner Nancy Sinatra, the dream-like 'Some Velvet Morning', by the late innovative guitarist Rowland S.Howard of The Birthday Party and Lydia Lunch in 1982, the singer/songwriter's influence has progressively grown among 'alternative' rock musicians. Einsturzende Neubauten, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Sonic Youth (whose drummer Steve Shelley reissued five vintage Hazlewood albums on his Smells Like label in 1999, including Lee's 1971 'relationship breakup' masterwork, Requiem for an Almost Lady), The Fall, Mick Harvey and Primal Scream have all since recorded Hazlewood compositions. This trend culminated in an uncommon Lee Hazlewood performance in June 1999, to a sold out crowd at the Royal Festival Hall in London, as part of Nick Cave's Meltdown, and in 2002 with the first full-blown Lee Hazlewood tribute album, Total Lee!, featuring The Tindersticks, Lambchop and Jarvis Cocker with Richard Hawley, was issued by City Slang.

When Mark Pickerel, featured on the Total Lee! album, had previously tried compiling a Hazlewood tribute album for Sub Pop Records during the early 1990's, featuring Beck and Nirvana, the ever-contrary songwriter had threatened to sue him. "I wasn't ready," Hazlewood later admitted. "I didn't know what grunge was. I didn't know anything; I wasn't even listening to radio then. I was living in Florida with my Mark, my son and my grandson, and my grandson was a teenager and we were having a lot of fun together and that's all I cared about then."

Three years after Hazlewood's death from renal cancer on August 4 2007 (a couple of weeks after his 78th birthday), Ace Records have honoured him with a magnificent compilation CD in their celebrated Songwriters series, Califia: The Songs of Lee Hazlewood. Compiled by Mick Patrick, who also provides the extensive booklet notes, the CD covers Lee Hazlewood's work from the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, complimenting Ace's previous Hazlewood releases These Boots Are Made for Walkin'; The Complete MGM Recordings (compiled by Rob Finnis and Jim Grant) and the incredibly rare late 1970's album (only a hundred copies where pressed on vinyl) Movin' On.

Califia: The Songs of Lee Hazlewood spans the period from Hazlewood's first big hit with rockabilly singer Sanford Clarke and the gifted guitarist Al Casey (the most important musical ally in Hazlewood's illustrious 50-year-long career), the brooding classic 'The Fool' (a blend of Howlin' Wolf's 'Smokestack Lightning' and "a cowboy song", later covered by Elvis Presley on Elvis Country in 1972) to "Little" Peggy 'I Will Follow Him' March's 1970 German cover of Hazlewood's 'And I Loved You Then', 'Das Ist Zauberei'.

Hazlewood's career history is an immense and complicated subject and only a mere thumbnail sketch of some of the highlights follows. Born on July 9 1929 in Oklahoma, Lee and family travelled all across the South West of America, as his father Gabriel was working on the oil fields before the star of World War Two. Hazlewood's studies at Southern Methodist University where interrupted when he was drafted into the US army, in which he saw active service during the Korean war. "War doesn't please me," Hazlewood would recollect. "And it was a war, although they called it a police action. But it was a war, and I'd never been in a war before, and I didn't enjoy that one."

After the war, he and his wife Naomi set up home in Pasadena California, where Hazlewood studied vocal technique at the Don Martin School of Broadcasting. With the course completed, Hazlewood moved to Coolidge, Arizona, where he became friends with Al Casey and Donnie Owens, who helped secure him a job with the country music radio station KCKY. At KCKY Hazlewood met a good-looking young guitarist whom he and Casey would mould within a few years into an international superstar, Duane Eddy. Having recorded local country acts, Al Casey and Sanford Clarke, Hazlewood turned his attentions to Eddy. In November 1957, in Phoenix, Hazlewood recorded the instrumental 'Moovin' n' Groovin'' with Duane Eddy and the Rebels. The track was shaped by Eddy playing around with the wang bar on his guitar, producing a twanging sound that would soon launch Hazlewood's and Eddy's careers. "I loved Eddy Duchin - the piano player who played the melody way down low on the piano," Hazwood would recall. "And I wanted to know why they didn't do that on guitar more because they didn't. So I asked Duane to do that, and he did that, and we made it, you know, that kind of guitar playing. And he was the best at playing that."

'Moovin' n' Groovin'' was a hit in March 1958 for the Jamie label, partly owned by Dick Clark, the host of the American TV show American Bandstand. The next Hazlewood/Eddy record for Jamie, 'Rebel Rouser', would be their breakout record. Hazlewood had a very specific sound in mind for the record, that he want to accentuate the twang. "Yeah, I used a grain tank for an echo," Hazlewood revealed. "We didn't have one. I went out and bought a... The studio wouldn't go for it so I went out, a little studio in Phoenix, so I went out and yelled in grain tanks, or storage tanks for grain all day and finally got one. And I asked the man how much he wanted for it and he said, ' $200.' And I said ' I'll pay $200 for it but I want it delivered.' He said,' Well, I have to charge for delivery.' And I said, ' Then I don't want your damned tank.' So he said ' Okay, I'll deliver it.' So he delivered it and we put it outside and it was really a complicated thing hooking it up. Put a little cheap microphone at one end and a little cheap speaker at the other end and that's how we got our echo. But that echo was extended with reverbs and all this kind of stuff, too"

Hazlewood in Hollywood overdubbed saxophone and hollers and whoops on 'Rebel Rouser', provided by an r&b doo wop group called The Sharps, featured on Califia: The Songs of Lee Hazlewood performing 'Have Love, Will Travel.' Recorded a month after 'Rebel Rouser', 'Have Love, Will Travel' features Duane Eddy's now trademark twanging guitar. By 1962, The Sharps had changed their name to The Rivingtons and had recorded the infamous 'Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow'.

In late 1959, Hazlewood's business partner, Lester Sill, brought a teenage Phil Spector along to watch proceedings during the recording of Eddy's The Twang's The Thang album. Spector was astounded by the cavernous echoing sounds being created, but his unremitting questioning of Hazlewood about how exactly they were achieved irritated the producer no end. Eventually, Hazlewood asked Sill to get him out of the studio, but Spector had learned much that greatly influence his own eminent 'wall of sound' production work. Further big hits followed for Eddy and Hazlewood until they temporarily fell out in 1962.

The 60s saw the release of Hazlewood's his first concept solo LP on the Mercury label, Trouble is a Lonesome Town in 1963. The album, a series of semi autobiographical character studies of people he knew growing up in Oklahoma, was essentially a demo Hazlewood had made for "a really good singer" to perform. But Jack Tracey, Hazlewood's friend and the head of west coast Mercury Records, heard the tapes and instited that they were released just as they where recorded. In 1964 Hazlewood retired, due to the all-pervasive presence of The Beatles on America's airwaves. "I just didn't care too much for The Beatles, " Hazlewood later admitted. "They sound like four Everly Brothers to me, you know, trying to be Everly Brothers. That was about all it was. And so I thought why should I make records that compete against all these English groups coming in, cause everything in the charts was English or it was Motown… I was just very happy to, I dunno, just sit in my back yard and watch the boats, swim in the pool." Hazlewood had already publically voiced his creative dilemma with the 1964 single by The Wildcats, featuring Darlene Love and the Blossoms, 'What Are We Gonna Do In '64?', another Califia: The Songs of Lee Hazlewood track.

His friend and neighbour Jimmy Bowen, of Frank Sinatra's Reprise Records label, cajoled Hazlewood back to the fray. In October 1964, Reprise released Hazlewood's second LP, The NSVIPs (Not So Very Important People), a semi-sequel to Trouble is a Lonesome Town, featuring Al Casey on 12 strung guitar during Lee's spoken word introductions. Hazlewood's Friday's Child album, featuring numerous subsequent hits followed on May 1965, also a Reprise release. That year Bowen persuaded a highly reticent Hazlewood to work with a Reprise guitar boy band. The boys in question where Dino, Desi & Billy, Dean Martin's son, the progeny of Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, and their school friend Billy Hinsche. Two of Dino, Desi & Billy's smash hits are included on Califia: The Songs of Lee Hazlewood; 'Not the Lovin' Kind' (later covered by Nancy Sinatra) and the biker garage rocker 'The Rebel Kind', which anticipates The Jesus & Mary Chain. "I made money but I was, oh boy, 12 and 13-year-old kids should not be in a recording studio with me," Hazlewood ruefully reflected. "They should be with somebody else, like a 16-year-old kid or something."

Hazlewood's next major Reprise assignment was even more daunting - the resurrection of Frank Sinatra's daughter's singing career. Her father's label where distraught that they could not seem to garner her any success, but having met Nancy at the Sinatra family home Hazlewood believed the mission was possible. "You can't sing like Nancy Nice Lady, you have to sing for the truckers," Hazlewood informed her. With voice lowered, a mean countenance projected and her miniskirts raised even higher, Nancy responded well to her partnership with the older singer songwriter. "Then my retirement went to hell cause I lucked out too fast," reflected Hazlewood. Their first single 'So Long Babe' reached the lower end of the US charts towards the close of 1965, but their second anthemic single, 'These Boots Are Made for Walkin'', reached number one in America in February 1966. This chart placing was soon repeated across the globe. "Certainly I love 'Boots'," the songwriter admitted in 2002. "'Boots' is a multi million dollar song, 'Boots' is headed fast, so fast to 10 million dollars it's scary. You can't help it, you know. 'Boots', I'm counting the movies it's in, it's in over 20 movies and we charge so much money to use it in movies. It's worth a lot of money, 'Boots' is."

By the end of '66 the Hazlewood/Sinatra partnership had produced four further hit singles ('How Does That Grab You, Darlin'?', 'Friday's Child', 'In Our Time' and 'Sugar Town') and an incredible four bestselling albums (Boots, How Does That Grab You?, Nancy in London and Sugar). Nancy Sinatra was finally an international star in her own right. The ever image conscious Hazlewood decided to adopt a look for the mid-1960s moment, growing a large moustache, styling a Caesar style haircut and wearing Cuban heal boots and fawn suede jackets - the look by which he is remembered today.

The b-side of 'Sugar Town', a frisky duet with Hazlewood 'Summer Wine', started to pick up airplay in 1967, igniting a demand for further Nancy and Lee duets. "Then you know you want to slit your wrists because they played 'Sugar Town' for three months, it sold about a million and a half," Hazlewood confessed. "Then they turned it over and it sold another half a million with that on the other side. So what I did is give them a $2 record for a dollar. That hurts your producer 's mind, and it hurts your publishing mind and it hurts your writer's mind and your performer 's mind. No, the performance worked out fine but all that other stuff you gave it awfully. You gave a two-sided hit. And I don't believe in two-sided hits. So that's how my wonderful singing career began."

Then the pair recorded 'Jackson', previously a hit for Johnny Cash and June Carter and 'Lady Bird', a 1967 Number 20 hit single, featured on the 1968 classic million selling LP, Nancy & Lee and now on Califia: The Songs of Lee Hazlewood. However, Nancy Sinatra's biggest hit of 1967 was the US Number One 'Somethin' Stupid', a duet with her father, which hit the top spot in February and remained there for a month. Though not written by Hazlewood, the song was produced by him and Jimmy Bowen and arranged and conducted by Lee's long-time collaborator, Billy Strange. Strange would also arrange and conduct Frank Sinatra's cover of Hazlewood's dramatic composition 'This Town' on the singer's 1967 LP, The World We Knew, which also included 'Somethin' Stupid'.

Hazlewood's success with Nancy meant that Lee could launch his own LHI (Lee Hazlewood Industries) label in 1966 and that his 1968 Love and Other Crimes Reprise album (which many view as one of the greatest recordings of his life) could be recorded in Paris with the fêted James Burton playing guitar. By 1970, Hazlewood was living in Scandinavia, recording the Swedish Cowboy in Sweden TV show and soundtrack album, before returning to Hollywood in 1972 to record with Nancy Sinatra the timeless Nancy and Lee Again, which contained their final worldwide hit, 'Did You Ever'. "Cowboy in Sweden was one of the best selling things they had," noted Hazlewood of the picturesque Swedish show directed by Torbjorn Axelman, who would in 1973 film the documentary Nancy & Lee in Las Vegas. "That was the first big one I did. That was the biggest budget TV show in Sweden to that date. We took six or seven weeks in the summer to do it. Really was pressed for time with about maybe a 10-man crew. Everybody just did everything... Yeah, we did, they just let us do about what we wanted to."

By the end of the 70s, Hazlewood had ceased to record and perform, but a 1995 reunion tour of the USA (the highlight of which was an incredible concert at the Limelight in New York City), Canada and Scandinavia with Nancy Sinatra propelled him back into the spotlight. In 1999, as eccentric as ever, Hazlewood issued his first solo album in over 20 years- a collection of old standards, remarkably entitled Famisht, Flatulence, Origami, Arf!!! and Me. Nancy & Lee 3, featuring an appearance by Duane Eddy, followed in 2004, before Hazlewood recorded his last album, Cake or Death, in 2006.

As well an expected track with Nancy Sinatra, numbers with guitarist Duane Eddy (including Hazlewood's second 1960 single as a singer, the haunting 'The Girl on Death Row') Al Casey (the rocking 1958 '(Got the) Teen-Age Blues') and movie star Ann Margret (the psychedelic guitar enveloped 'You Turned My Head Around'), Califia: The Songs Of Lee Hazlewood also includes many rare Hazlewood productions. These consist of The Hondas 1962 ballad 'Twelve Feet High', The Darlenes girl group drama '(I'm Afraid) You'll Hurt Me', Suzi Jane Hokom's 1966 witchcraft incantation 'Need All the Help I Can Get' and a previously unreleased version of 'These Boots Are Made for Walkin'' by Rose & the Heavenly Tones.

Coupled with the 1958 piano driven rock 'n' roil assault of the astonishing 'Snake Eyed Mama' by Don Cole and Al Casey (with Casey at the piano), Dusty Springfield's 1968 title theme for the Tony Franciosa youth movie Sweet Ride and the 1969 'Calfia (Stone Rider)' by Hazlewood & Suzi Jane Hokom, the title of which refers to the Amazon warrior queen after which California is supposedly named, Califia: The Songs of Lee Hazlewood is a complication that definitely stands worthy of the man it salutes. If this all wasn't enough good news, the liner notes reveal that a further Ace compilation, featuring Lee Hazlewood's extensive back catalogue of instrumentals, is in the offing. Obviously The Twang is still The Thang.

Califa: The Songs of Lee Hazlewood is out now on Ace Records. All the quotes in this article come from LEE HAZLEWOOD For Every Question There's an Answer,a 2002 European 52-track question and answer promo City Slang interview CD.

Fuel Removal From Fukushima’s Reactor 4 Threatens ‘Apocalyptic’ Scenario

I want to introduce in my blog an article about Fukushima and nuclear power. It is a shame for all of us that the most important issue probably for the humanity is not being covered carefully with full attention and full dedication. It is very important what is going on in Japan these days. I would never like being a Japanese today at all. They should be in the streets demanding solutions, efficient work and also praying for a miracle.

This issue in particular makes me wonder how bad human specie we are as intelligent being.  After the massive destruction during the second world war II and the use of nuclear power against human beings. How can it be such a nuclear race and nuclear proliferation in order to pump the economies of the nations. How bad are the leaders and how bad we are to tolerate this scenario. Even now after Chernobyl and Fukushima!! I guess that there are to many things to fight against and to fight for. We should be more concern about how our energy comes to our homes, otherwise there will be always conflicts and problems. Lets see if we have a chance to make the things better..I can only say that so far so terrible!

This article I have taken form the website http://www.globalresearch.ca

 

Fuel Removal From Fukushima’s Reactor 4 Threatens ‘Apocalyptic’ Scenario. Radiation Fuel Rods Matches Fallout of 14,000 Hiroshima Bombs

An operation with potentially “apocalyptic” consequences is expected to begin in a little over two weeks from now – “as early as November 8″ – at Fukushima’s damaged and sinking Reactor 4, when plant operator TEPCO will attempt to remove over 1300 spent fuel rods holding the radiation equivalent of 14,000 Hiroshima bombs from a spent fuel storage tank perched on the reactor’s upper floor.
Fukushima Reactor 4


While the Reactor 4 building itself did not suffer a meltdown, it did suffer a hydrogen explosion, is now tipping and sinking and has zero ability to withstand another seismic event.
The Japan Times explained:

To remove the rods, TEPCO has erected a 273-ton mobile crane above the building that will be operated remotely from a separate room.

[...] spent fuel rods will be pulled from the racks they are stored in and inserted one by one into a heavy steel chamber while the assemblies are still under water. Once the chamber is removed from the pool and lowered to the ground, it will be transported to another pool in an undamaged building on the site for storage.

Under normal circumstances, such an operation would take little more than three months, but TEPCO is hoping to complete the complicated task within fiscal 2014.

A chorus of voices has been sounding alarm over the never-been-done-at-this-scale plan to manually remove the 400 tons of spent fuel by TEPCO, who so far has been responsible for mishap after mishap in the ongoing crisis at the crippled nuclear plant.

Arnie Gundersen, a veteran U.S. nuclear engineer and director of Fairewinds Energy Education, warned this summer that “They are going to have difficulty in removing a significant number of the rods,” and said that “To jump to the conclusion that it is going to work just fine is quite a leap of logic.”  Paul Gunter, MD, Director of the Reactor Oversight Project with Takoma Park, Md.-based Beyond Nuclear, also sounded alarm on Thursday, telling Common Dreams in a statement that “Given the uncertainties of the condition and array of the hundreds of tons of nuclear  fuel assemblies, it will be a risky round of highly radioactive pickup sticks.”  Gundersen offered this analogy of the challenging process of removing the spent fuel rods:

If you think of a nuclear fuel rack as a pack of cigarettes, if you pull a cigarette straight up it will come out — but these racks have been distorted. Now when they go to pull the cigarette straight out, it’s going to likely break and release radioactive cesium and other gases, xenon and krypton, into the air. I suspect come November, December, January we’re going to hear that the building’s been evacuated, they’ve broke a fuel rod, the fuel rod is off-gassing. […]
I suspect we’ll have more airborne releases as they try to pull the fuel out. If they pull too hard, they’ll snap the fuel. I think the racks have been distorted, the fuel has overheated — the pool boiled – and the net effect is that it’s likely some of the fuel will be stuck in there for a long, long time.

The Japan Times adds:

Removing the fuel rods is a task usually assisted by computers that know their exact location down to the nearest millimeter. Working virtually blind in a highly radioactive environment, there is a risk the crane could drop or damage one of the rods — an accident that would heap even more misery onto the Tohoku region.

As long-time anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman explained, the

Spent fuel rods must be kept cool at all times. If exposed to air, their zirconium alloy cladding will ignite, the rods will burn and huge quantities of radiation will be emitted. Should the rods touch each other, or should they crumble into a big enough pile, an explosion is possible.

“In the worst-case scenario,” RT adds,

the pool could come crashing to the ground, dumping the rods together into a pile that could fission and cause an explosion many times worse than in March 2011.

Wasserman says that the plan is so risky it requires a global take-over, an urging Gunter also shared, stating that the “dangerous task should not be left to TEPCO but quickly involve the oversight and management of independent international experts.”
Wasserman told Common Dreams that

The bring-down of the fuel rods from Fukushima Unit 4 may be the most dangerous engineering task ever undertaken.  Every indication is that TEPCO is completely incapable of doing it safely, or of reliably informing the global community as to what’s actually happening.  There is no reason to believe the Japanese government could do much better.  This is a job that should only be undertaken by a dedicated team of the world’s very best scientists and engineers, with access to all the funding that could be needed.
The potential radiation releases in this situation can only be described as apocalyptic.  The cesium alone would match the fallout of 14,000 Hiroshima bombs.  If the job is botched, radiation releases could force the evacuation of all humans from the site, and could cause electronic equipment to fail.  Humankind would be forced to stand helplessly by as billions of curies of deadly radiation pour into the air and the ocean.

As dire as Wasserman’s warning sounds, it is echoed by fallout researcher Christina Consolo, who told RT that the worst case scenario could be “a true apocalypse.” Gunter’s warning was dire as well.
“Time is of the essence as we remain concerned that another earthquake could still topple the damaged reactor building and the nuclear waste storage pond up in its attic,” he continued. “This could literally re-ignite the nuclear accident in the open atmosphere and inflame it into hemispheric proportions,” said Gunter.
Wasserman says that given the gravity of the situation, the eyes of the world should be upon Fukushima:

This is a question that transcends being anti-nuclear.  The fate of the earth is at stake here and the whole world must be watching every move at that site from now on.  With 11,000 fuel rods scattered around the place, as a ceaseless flow of contaminated water poisoning our oceans, our very survival is on the line.

Presidente Maduro decreta acciones para derrotar guerra económica

Noticias en tiempo de guerra economica en Venezuela!

Hacia la victoria!

"Tenemos un plan, tenemos un proyecto", así lo manifestó el presidente venezolno, Nicolás Maduro en su discurso para dar a concoer las acciones para combatir la guerra económica, y agregó que "no son estas dificultades las que arrodillarán al pueblo, ni ninguna. Este pueblo no nació para andar de rodillas; este pueblo no despertó con Chávez para volver a las tinieblas y andar de rodillas otra vez, frente a las élites enriquecidas que han saqueado a este país". Finalizó el mandatario al convocar "a toda Venezuela a que sumemos en esta batalla", contra la derecha del país. teleSUR

Desde Telesur se informa: www.telesurtv.net/

El primer mandatario de Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, llamó este martes a profundizar y tomar acciones fundamentales que le permitan al pueblo derrotar y hacerle frente a la guerra económica emprendida por la derecha opositora en contra del país.
Desde el palacio de Miraflores (en la capital venezolana), el presidente Maduro estuvo reunido con parte de su gabinete donde reiteró que su Gobierno va a proteger al pueblo ante cualquier estrategia emprendida para desestabilizar la economía.
En ese sentido explicó que ha decidido implementar seis objetivos fundamentales para acompañar al pueblo en la derrota a la guerra económica. Hemos propuesto una ofensiva que ratifique varios objetivos, dijo el mandatario. "Lograr a través de los cambios en la política, órganos y mecanismos para equilibrar la economía real".
En segundo lugar recordó que se debe "golpear duramente en fases, al capital especulativo y antipatriota (...), aquel que quiera participar en la economía que lo haga pero respetando al pueblo venezolano".
"No debemos detenernos en la construcción de lo nuevo, por la perturbación y ofensiva de la guerra económica; al contrario debemos aplicar estrategias" para fortalecer la producción.
Como parte de esta ofensiva, llamó a "iniciar desde hoy una gran operación nacional en todo el país de lucha contra la especulación y el acaparamiento una operación cívico militar que va a recorrer todo el país. Vamos hasta el último nivel de la cadena productiva del país".
"Vamos a un proceso a fondo para enfrentar los falsos sistemas de fijación de precios a través de mecanismos especulativos perturbados y conspirativos".
De cara a las festividades de este mes de diciembre y el fin de año, el mandatario reiteró que "Vamos a establecer para este periodo de noviembre-diciembre un operativo especial de protección y garantía de venta a precios justos para la población de varios rubros que hemos considerado prioritarios: textiles, calzados, electrodomésticos, vehículos, artículos del hogar e higiene juguetes entre otros que están en una guía especial de inspección".
Como cuarto punto de esta ofensiva emprendida por el Gobierno venezolano, propuso "crear una operación para estabilizar un fondo especial de compensación para la protección de los precios de los bienes de consumo masivo y priorizado".
Para la mejor administración de las divisas contempladas en el Presupuesto Nacional, Maduro anunció la creación del "Presupuesto Nacional en Divisas del Estado venezolano; no tengan la menor duda que tendremos contempladas cada una de las divisas que necesite el país (...), todo el mundo debe estar incorporado en este plan que refleje las necesidades reales; de este modo se optimizará la inversión de cada dólar que le pertenece a la República".
En torno a la garantía del abastecimiento alimentario y bienes para noviembre, diciembre y primer semestre de 2014; anunció que "he firmado todo lo necesario para asignar los recursos necesarios en el país y así mantener las empresas productivas del país".
"Ya los Ministros de la Economía, particularmente el Ministro Osorio tiene todos los recursos que necesita el país (...), reitero busquemos el punto de equilibrio para hacerle frente a la guerra económica y psicológica".
Para agilizar la entrega de recursos, las importaciones y el abastecimiento en el país el Presidente venezolano señaló que se ha conformado una Corporación Nacional de Logística Interna de Transporte que "esté conformada por una red, centros de mantenimiento; hemos hecho una petición a China y Brasil para que nos envíen cinco mil camiones de distinto calado para restablecer la flota existente privada y pública (...) el CEO necesita camiones para uso civil y cívico-militar".
Dio a conocer que en las próximas horas se anunciarán un conjunto de acciones en el sector financiero del país, "para estimular el ahorro nacional pero sobre todo en bolívares. Vamos a activar el Fondo Popular para el Ahorro", un organismo que fue una idea del presidente Chávez en su momento.
Para la Banca Pública y Privada reiteró que se aplicarán medidas que "fortalezcan el ahorro, la inversión y el desarrollo en el país. Necesitamos un nuevo orden económico, para hacerle frente a la guerra económica y dar un salto en la economía nacional", para ello "hemos tomado estas acciones unidas a la fuerza de los revolucionarios, si de trabajar se trata, vamos juntos".
El Comando Estratégico de la Fuerza Armada y el Órgano Superior para la Defensa del Consumidor se unirán en estas tareas a nivel nacional. "A partir de este martes entramos en una nueva fase para incorporar a la juventud venezolana con sentimiento patriótico en este proceso; los llamo a todos y a todas al trabajo, a incorporarse a los Comités Populares de Defensa de la Economía".
Organismos para el control del comercio exterior
En el campo de la administración de divisas y el comercio exterior, el Primer Mandatario anunció que "se decretará el Centro Nacional de Comercio Exterior, que dirigirá toda la política de administración de divisas para las importaciones en el país y todas las actividades relacionadas con este sector (...); el control de las importaciones debe tener un control".
Dentro de este Centro Nacional de Comercio Exterior serán incluidas las actividades de Cadivi, Sicad y la banca pública que se encarguen del proceso de asignación de divisas en el país. "Crearemos también la Corporación Nacional de Comercio Exterior para que valide de manera especial las empresas privadas nacionales e internacionales que quieran participar en este nuevo organismo (...), desde ya pasan a esta corporación empresas especializadas como Bariven, CASA y otras empresas públicas".

Venezuela detiene a 5 personas por delitos de especulación

La fiscal General de Venezuela, Luisa Ortega Díaz, informó este domingo que detuvieron a cinco por presuntos ilícitos, como resultado del plan intensivo de fiscalización que impulsa el Gobierno Nacional para enfrentar la especulación en ese país.
"El Ministerio Público presentará este domingo a cinco gerentes de varias tiendas de electrodomésticos de Caracas (capital) y el estado Falcón (noroeste), por presunta usura en el remarcaje de precios", informó en una nota de prensa el ministerio de Comunicación.
La fiscal señaló que también han sido aprehendidas “varias personas” por ingresar de forma violenta a un comercio de electrodomésticos en la población de Naguanagua, en el estado Carabobo (norte), porque querer presuntamente apoderarse de productos.
Todos estos individuos serán presentados antes los tribunales este domingo.
“Presumimos que se intentó propiciar un saqueo, acción que el Estado no va a permitir. Rechazamos situaciones de caos, cualquier acción que quieran impulsar para generar hechos violentos”, enfatizó Ortega, quien agregó que “el Ministerio Público está atento evitando que estas situaciones ocurran”.
Del mismo modo, Ortega indicó que citaron para este lunes a los representantes de las tiendas inspeccionadas, a los fines de verificar la legalidad de la mercancía, los precios, las actas constitutivas y otros documentos de interés para la investigación.
La Fiscal destacó la participación de su ministerio en los operativos contra la especulación, que dirige el Órgano Superior para la Defensa Popular de la Economía, que se ha propuesto a enfrentar la especulación y el acaparamiento con fiscalizaciones en todo el país.
Posteriormente, el vicepresidente Jorge Arreaza expresó en su cuenta en la red social Twitter que "acciones del Gobierno Bolivariano contra la especulación han sido y serán contundentes. Vamos a proteger al PUEBLO del parasitismo burgués".
"Estas políticas económicas del Pdte @NicolasMaduro apuntan al fin del capitalismo rentista y el nacimiento del modelo productivo socialista", agregó el segundo al mando del Ejecutivo nacional en su cuenta ‏@jaarreaza.
Estas acciones forman parte del plan anunciado este viernes por el Ejecutivo para derrotar la guerra económica promovida por la derecha para desestabilizar al país.
En esta ofensiva participan un total de 40 fiscales regionales, quienes están distribuidos en todos los estados del país y el Área Metropolitana de Caracas, así como cinco fiscales nacionales por regiones.
Este viernes el Gobierno venezolano emprendió un nuevo frente en su lucha contra la especulación, mediante la fiscalización de diversas tiendas de electrodomésticos por parte de funcionarios de los entes económicos y de protección al usuario venezolano.
El presidente Nicolás Maduro denunció este sábado que en las inspecciones se ha encontrado que los precios son elevados hasta el mil por ciento y que estas alzas siguen la tendencia del mercado paralelo del dólar, que sube semanalmente, por lo que también ordenó sacar de la web las páginas que difunden la cotización del dólar paralelo en Venezuela.

 

Gil Scott Heron - The revolution will not be televised

For those who belive in the revolution, you know that it will never be broadcast..the revolution will not be televised! Gil Scott Heron knew it very well! Viva la revolucion!

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised  

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the 
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

This comes from a fantastic musical blog: http://zerogsounds.blogspot.de/2013/03/gil-scott-heron-1971-pieces-of-man.html

Gil Scott-Heron - 1971 – Pieces Of A Man

After decades of influencing everyone from jazz musicians to hip-hop stars, "Pieces of a Man" set a standard for vocal artistry and political awareness that few musicians will ever match.

Scott-Heron's unique proto-rap style influenced a generation of hip-hop artists, and nowhere is his style more powerful than on the classic "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." Even though the media - the very entity attacked in this song - has used, reused, and recontextualized the song and its title so many times, its message is so strong that it has become almost impossible to co-opt. Musically, the track created a formula that modern hip-hop would follow for years to come: bare-bones arrangements featuring pounding basslines and stripped-down drumbeats. Although the song features plenty of outdated references to everything from Spiro Agnew and Jim Webb to The Beverly Hillbillies, the force of Scott-Heron's well-directed anger makes the song timeless.

More than just a spoken word poet, Scott-Heron was also a uniquely gifted vocalist. On tracks like the reflective "I Think I'll Call It Morning" and the title track, Scott-Heron's voice is complemented perfectly by the soulful keyboards of Brian Jackson. On "Lady Day and John Coltrane," he not only celebrates jazz legends of the past in his words but in his vocal performance, one that is filled with enough soul and innovation to make Coltrane and Billie Holiday nod their heads in approval. Four decades after its release, "Pieces of a Man" is just as - if not more - powerful and influential today as it was the day it was released.

Tracklist:
01. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
02. Save The Children
03. Lady Day and John Coltrane
04. Home Is Where The Hatred Is
05. When You Are Who You Are
06. I Think I’ll Call It Morning
07. Pieces Of Man
08. A Sign Of The Ages
09. Or Down You’ll Fall
10. The Needles Eye
11. The Prisoner

Smoog - Red Apple falls

Today is the day for Bill Callahan! I was a bit lazy last days and I didnt post nothing. Anyway. I am back from work and i want to listen something..i open my files and i find Smoog. Great! What to listen  from him?I have chosen the album Red apple falls. It is simply brilliant. I feel like going to the forest and listen to some music while cycling. Autumn in Berlin is very beautiful. Oh, this record is really beautiful as well..I was a stranger!

Here it is a review-retrospective from the blog of a guy from London  loftandlost.com. A very nice blog indeed! Enjoy!

Bill Callahan’s got a new album out today. As the man behind Smog, and (Smog), he’s been one of my favourite musicians for over a decade now, since the release of “Knock Knock” got my attention back in 1998. Thanks to my (hopefully) temporarily straightened circumstances, I haven’t pre-ordered the new one, but I spent last night listening to some of his older stuff. Just for old times sake, you know.


For me, Bill Callahan has been one of the best lyricists around for some years. He has a disturbing ability to be able to say just enough to discombobulate you. Sometimes, it’s just with a few well-placed words that, on their own, don’t seem to mean much, but as he builds a song to its climax, he says something that makes you stop in your tracks.

One of the great early examples of this is the song “All Your Women Things” off The Doctor Came At Dawn. In it, he describes how a woman that is no longer with him (and whether she actually left him of her own volition, or whether he got rid of her in some way is tantalisingly, and typically, left unsaid) left all her clothes and other items in his room. All fine and creepy, but then he sings (and look away now if you want to hear it for yourself before going on further):

“Oh all of these things\I gathered them\And I made a dolly”

You what?

“I made a dolly\A spread-eagle dolly\Out of your frilly things”

Oh Lordy. It was bad enough saying he’d made a dolly out of them, but then saying “A spread-eagle dolly” makes you really, really scared.

It gets worse:

“Why couldn’t I have loved you\This tenderly\When you were here?”

I really hope he means “love” in the cerebral, pure sense, rather than the “make love” sense. Or that would be….eeeeugh. And all this is gently intoned, in almost a monotone, over plucked repetative guitar lines and mournful cello. It’s seriously creepy.

Next up was “I Break Horses”. I was first turned onto this song by the music journalist Ben Thompson, who in the great Seven Years of Plenty: Handbook of Irrefutable Pop Greatness, 1991-98, described this song as “One that can reduce strong people…to heaps of quivering gelatin”. He’s not wrong. Again, Smog uses his deadpan voice, with just a hint of emotion, to describe how he breaks horses – “Just a few well placed words/And their wandering hearts are gone”.

But it’s clear that it isn’t horses he’s talking about. His horribly detailed eye for human failings has come to the fore again, and he ends the song with the unpleasantness of “Tonight I’m swimming to my favorite island\And I don’t want to see you swimming behind\I break horses\I don’t tend to them”. Again, it’s about saying just enough to tell you how truly horrible the subject of the song is, without any histrionics.

Early Smog was generally pretty lo-fi, usually just scratchy guitar and drums, with the occasional cello. But 1997′s LP “Red Apple Falls” was a shock, as the opener started with French horns, of all things. He’d gone through a major change in the way he used instrumentation, and with producer Jim O’Rourke, really opened up the sound. All the better to scare you with, my dear.

And scariness was still there, to devastating effect, on that album’s “I Was A Stranger”. Still a huge fan favourite, it tells the tale of a new man in town. When my wife (then a new girlfriend) heard it, as we sped through German forests on a weekend trip, she got rather worried that I was actually some kind of serial killer. Listen to it now then carry on reading:

(Yes, I know it’s rather odd to video yourself miming a song then post it on YouTube, but if the Internet has done one thing, it’s showed the astonishing diversity of humanity)

Right, got that last line? I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you. It’s one of the best ending lines of any song – and again, done by just saying the absolute minimum to get his message across. And what’s more, you’re still unclear as to what he’d actually done in the last town. In all the best horror movies, the mind fills in what you’re not shown, and the human brain is really rather good at scaring itself. He doesn’t need to say what he’s done – just say that he was “well known”, and criticises the locals: “And why do you women in this town\Let me look at you so bold?”. Classic.

Last in this short little retrospective is a rather gentler song, from his last album as (Smog). Now, I wouldn’t want you to think all Bill Callahan/Smog/(Smog) songs are about sociopaths and worse; this song is about how your family can help drag you back from whatever depths you’ve sunk to. To do this, he tells a tale of seeing a gold ring at the bottom of a river, and dives in to take it. But when he’s in the water, he can’t swim back from the bottom and is pulled out by his mother, father, and sisters. Yet again, in simplicity lies beauty. This time, there’s no punchline, just a repetition of the chorus – but now you have the understanding of what he’s gone through to sing those lines.

I first heard him play this live well before the album came out, and along with “The Well” (sample line: “I guess everybody has their own thing\That they yell into a well”), it got the biggest cheer of the night. By the way, he’s also the only musician I’ve ever seen who does his set-list, then says “Ok, that’s my list – what do you want to hear?” and then takes requests. Having seen him do four live shows now, he does this every time – and he doesn’t appear to be cherry-picking the songs that he’d already decided to play. For a man who really doesn’t seem at all comfortable playing in front of an audience (Ben Thompson described him as “calling into question the whole meaning of the word ‘live’”), it’s an amazing thing to do.

Anyway, I hope I haven’t scared you off with those songs. There’s loads more I could talk about – even the song titles alone give you some sense of how good he is, from “Dress Sexy At My Funeral” to “Prince Alone In A Studio”. He’s an amazing artist; I just hope that he manages to get the recognition he deserves. And look, no mention of either Cat Power or Joanna Newsom.