I “Ground Control to Major Tom,”are likely the first words any of usever heard from David Bowie. Maybe I was five, and for yearsI would hear that distinctive voiceon the radio and knew the hits, but my older siblings, the arbitersof new music into the householdnever brought home a Bowie album. I didn’t start buyingContinue reading “#628: B is for Bowie (“Five Years,” The Box)”
Category Archives: Poetry
We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program to Talk About Poetry: An Apology and a Defense
In my ambitious bid to listen to every record in my collection from A to Z and to write a poem about each artist in the process, I am learning something new about poetry. First of all, writing a “good” poem “in response to a thing,” especially on the fly, is difficult or impossible toContinue reading “We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program to Talk About Poetry: An Apology and a Defense”
#627: B is for The Boomtown Rats
It is difficultto put into wordswhat The Boomtown Ratsmeant to me as an aspiringpunk rocker and 16 year-old.Attracted mostly to music from across the bigpond, XTC, Elvis Costello, and these guys, these guysespecially, gave voice to every creative vibration pulsating through my little brain. Bob Geldof, that gangly, Irish punk, with his imprecise, manic, snarlingContinue reading “#627: B is for The Boomtown Rats”
#626: B is for Blood, Sweat & Tears
It’s 1968. Hey, I know, let’sopen up a rock recordwith Eric Satie and follow that with somewild, short, orchestral Satie variation thing, and then we’ll play the funk rock real hard with horns and organs and lyrics about gettingyourself togetherand then we’ll swingharder than any jazzband and the drummerwill just kind of go crazythrough theContinue reading “#626: B is for Blood, Sweat & Tears”
#625: B is NOT for Blake, Sexton, a.k.a. Sexton Blake
Because the band is named after a literary person, a fictional British detective, and not a real person, I’ve discovered I have misfiled Sexton Blake in the B’s. Needless to say, I did not listen to this record from Sexton Blake after finding the mistake, and filed Plays the Hits, a collection of 80’s cover tunes, post-haste,Continue reading “#625: B is NOT for Blake, Sexton, a.k.a. Sexton Blake”
#624: We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program to Talk about Record Store Day on Black Friday
It’s Black Friday Record Store Dayand I am boycotting the experience. I thought I was going to pay a visitto my local neighborhood record storebut they really don’t need my supporttoday because they get my supportprobably a couple times a month, sometimes every single week, and the titles offered this year arenot very enticing. IContinue reading “#624: We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program to Talk about Record Store Day on Black Friday”
#623: B is for Black Midi
I heard Black Midithe first time in the video for “John L,” a.k.a.“John 50,” which must have been the first single from the 2021 Cavalcade album, the band’s sophomoreeffort. Visually insane, a group of dancers in nude-beige body suits, in clown-like white face, wearing wigs, cavortingand contorting wildly around some obelisk figure with armsand a single eyeball. Musically, it was like a marriage between King Crimson and Primus, but weirder, noisier, aContinue reading “#623: B is for Black Midi”
#622: B is for Black Country, New Road
I It’s 2021, pandemic winding down, civilization returning somewhat to normal, and two artists, right next to each other in the alphabet, breakout from jolly ol’ England, two experimental and unconventionalyoung bands bringing togethera regular smorgasbord of influencesfrom the progressive and art rockmovements of the last decades. The first of these, this band called BlackContinue reading “#622: B is for Black Country, New Road”
#621: B is for Björk
Who needs verses and choruses? Bridges, too. Who needs ’em?Recognizable melodies? Passé. Björk, as much as I love her, as much as I find herabsolutely irresistible as a creative force of singular visionand equally singular persona, gets weirder and weirder witheach new album. Fossora, an album consisting instrumentallyof woodwinds, horns, drum machines,some synthesizers, voice choirs,andContinue reading “#621: B is for Björk”
#620: B is for Bird, Andrew
I He’s a whistler. He does the whistlingfor Walter, the muppet, in one of the Muppet movies.More than a decadeago (maybe two!) an intern of mine turned me on to Bird.Back in the oughts of this 21st century, I usedto purchase records for download, before streamingwas a thing. For a shorttime I subscribed to aContinue reading “#620: B is for Bird, Andrew”
michael jarmer 