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An occasional blog about populist politics and popular music, not necessarily at the same time. LinksLocal Links My Other Websites Music Politics Others Networking Music DatabaseArtist Search: Website SearchGoogle: Recent Reading
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Sunday, May 28, 2017 Music Week
Music: Current count 28187 [28166] rated (+21), 387 [397] unrated (-10). As this weekly post falls on Memorial Day, I'd like to dedicate it our fallen heroes: not those who lost their lives in the many pointless wars this nation has waged since shortly before I was born, but to those who spoke, wrote, and often demonstrated against those wars, especially those who recognized how tightly war was bound up with social and economic injustice, who saw the struggle against both as equally necessary. Foremost in my mind today are Alice Powell and Mary Harren, who late in their lives became good friends as well as comrades, and Elizabeth Fink, one of the finest, most steadfast, and most principled legal minds of our generation. I could, of course, come up with a few dozen more names of people I've known, and many more who inspired me from a distance -- David Dellinger is one of the latter I often find myself returning to. And, thankfully, there are many more still living, still struggling to turn minds and souls against America's fascination with empire and its attendant inequality and injustice. Among the living one I should mention is Gail Pellett, who I knew briefly in St. Louis in the early 1970s. She was a graduate student in the sociology department at Washington University, and I was in several classes with her and ran into her socially and politically. She graduated and left for Boston, then a couple years later moved to New York, working in public radio and teaching journalism. In 1980 she got a job as a "foreign language expert" for Radio Beijing in China, and spent a year there trying to fit in and ultimately getting rejected (or at least dejected). A couple years ago she wrote a memoir of her time in China, Forbidden Fruit, which I recently read. Terrific book, taught me a lot about the post-Mao transition in China -- the scars of the Cultural Revolution and the fitful reforms of Deng Xiaoping's zig and zag toward economic reform and prosperity minus democracy. But it also filled in some earlier and later history of Gail I never knew, and reminded me how much I adored her when our paths crossed. Also note all the music she mentions. Those years were the ones that got me interested in music and its social context, so she probably had something to do with all that. Relatively light week of record processing: partly because I was distracted with all the Trump nonsense, partly because I took some time off to paint the fence and cook, partly because I'm having a lot of trouble making up my mind about good-but-not-great albums. Two of those inched into the A- column this week, with a couple more falling arbitrarily short (Cuong Vu was probably the most tempting, followed by Diet Cig and Klaus Treuheit, with Shakira most volatile (only 2 plays, could go either way), and I still haven't made up my mind on Riverside after 6-7 plays). Feeling a big nostalgic, so I made fried chicken, biscuits & gravy, and green beans tonight -- the chicken and gravy like my mother taught me (and they came out near-perfect), but I cheated a bit on the rest (much to the meal's detriment: I used a microwave bag of green beans and some really old Bisquick that didn't rise). Just for us, so I wasn't too embarrassed, but I can do better. Looks like I need to post Streamnotes tomorrow or Wednesday. Draft file currently has 106 albums, so the post will be lighter than usual, not that I've slacked off too badly this month. Still don't have many good non-jazz leads to chase down. New records rated this week:
Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries rated this week:
Old music rated this week:
Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:
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