I Am Pure and Steady - 3/21 show

After two weeks of subbing and swapping, I was back in my usual slot today. That was kind of nice.

So, I admit it: when I first heard of Baby Dee, I didn't know what to make of her, and I passed on doing the CD review for the station. The information available on Baby Dee's website does not entirely elucidate; mostly you get the impression that Baby Dee is a little known phenomenon who's been performing for quite a while. Discovering her now feels like picking up a book in the middle. So: Baby Dee is described as a transgendered musician and performer; she sings with a voice that is in a male pitch range but with female intonation and speech patterns. The closest comparison would be Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons (with whom Baby Dee has performed), but whereas Antony uses his pure falsetto to gorgeous effect, Baby Dee's voice has more of a growl to it and works well with vaudeville. Some of the songs are very much vaudeville, and very funny; so far, I like these the most. Baby Dee is harpist, but also plays piano, and some songs also seem to feature accordion. I'm still exploring the album and figuring out how I feel about this artist, but the moment I heard the song "The Only Bones that Show," I wanted to hear more. (The title of the song sounds a bit like a riddle; what are the only bones that show? Teeth, of course.)

Baby Dee was not the only harpist in this week's show; I also played Toumani Diabaté, who plays the Malian harp. The songs on this album (those I've heard, at least) are instrumentals, and gorgeous. They run a little long, but you get lost in them, and don't notice the passing time. The way the notes weave around each other reminds me a bit of Zimbabwean mbira orchestra music, which is a bit of an obscure reference. It's probably better that it sounds like harp music, when a harp is used for more than simply arpeggios. On Monday night, listening to Catherine's show, she played Diabaté, and followed him up with Joanna Newsom, which was just about perfect; it didn't seem right for me to turn around and do the same thing.

On to other things... I regularly read a blog about comics (newspaper comics) called the Comics Curmudgeon (at joshreads.com). Josh's posts are very funny, but to get the full effect you must also read the comments. And, when people post comments, they often link their names to their own sites (I regularly link to my blog or my webcomic, and have picked up a couple of readers as a result). One of my fellow 'mudges had linked his name to djearworm.com, and I went to check it out toward the end of last year. DJ Earworm makes mashups, but not typical mashups. Typical mashups involve editing out the vocals of one song and the music of another, and putting the remainder together, giving you, for example, the vocals of "Get Your Freak On" with the music of "Love Will Tear Us Apart". DJ Earworm's mashups tend to more fully blend the songs, matching phrases on top of phrases. The effect is a little like that scene in Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas in which Emmet and his band discover that the song they sang for the contest and the song Emmet's mother sang for the contest sound better as a duet (OK: possibly the most obscure reference I could have made). Anyway, some of these mashups involve two or more songs mixed together; today, I played "Stairway to Bootleg Heaven", which involves 7. The whole thing is more or less centered on Dolly Parton's version of "Stairway to Heaven", but it starts mellow and moody, with bits of Eurythmics, Laurie Anderson, the Art of Noise, and the Beatles, and rocks out at the end with Pat Benetar and the Beastie Boys. It's pretty awesome, but don't take my word for it, go listen for yourself. And then check out some of the others.

And now: today's playlist.

*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists	Shake the Sheets	Shake the Sheets	Lookout
The Earlies	No Love in Your Heart	The Enemy Chorus	Secretly Canadian
Rainer Maria	Ears Ring	Ears Ring EP	Polyvinyl
*Nada Surf	From Now On	Lucky	Barsuk
*Toumani Diabaté	Ismael Drame	The Mandé Variations	Nonesuch
Dead Can Dance	Song of the Dispossessed	Spiritchaser	4AD
The Aluminum Group	If You've Got a Lover, You've Got a Life	Pelo	Hefty
Blossom Dearie	Bang Goes the Drum	Jazz Masters 51	Verve
*DeVotchKa	Comrade Z	A Mad and Faithful Telling	Anti-
*Baby Dee	The Only Bones that Show	Safe inside the Day	Drag City
*Atlas Sound	Cold as Ice	Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel	Kranky
Baby Teeth	Diaghalev Was Right	The Baby Teeth Album	Self-released babyteethmusic.com
DJ Earworm	Stairway to Bootleg Heaveb	djearworm.com	Self-released djearworm.com
Talking Heads	Good Thing	More Songs about Buildings and Food	Sire
Pizzicato Five	Good	The Sound of Music	Matador
*Vampire Weekend	A-Punk	Vampire Weekend	XL
*The Gutter Twins	I Was in Love with You	Saturnalia	Sub Pop
The Tourists	It Doesn't Have to Be This Way	Reality Effect	Epic
*Headlights	Cherry Tulips	Some Racing, Some Stopping	Polyvinyl
I Am the World Trade Center	Love Tragedy	The Cover Up	Gammon
!!!	Heart of Hearts	Myth Takes	WARP
The Noisettes	Don't Give Up	What's the Time Mr Wolf	Universal/Motown
May or May Not	Plight of the Navigator	Colors Only Bees Can See	Two Thumbs Down
(r)Superchunk	Act Surprised	Here's to Shutting Up	Merge
*Paper Airplanes	Political Lunch	MiddleMarch	All Hail
*No Kids	Neighbour's Party	Come Into My House	Tomlab
(r)Old Time Relijun	Tigers in the Temple	Lost Light	K
Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire	Feetlips	Oh! The Grandeur	Ryko

Labels: music, playlists

posted by Tony at 8:55 AM