I’ve been away from the computer for a couple days, but I wanted to acknowledge that Amy Winehouse earned six Grammy Award nominations on Thursday, and I say yes! yes! yes!
I’ve been listening to “Rehab” and the rest of Back to Black for just about a solid year now and the CD hasn’t gotten old or tiresome yet. It’s far and away my favorite album to be released in 2007. Continue reading
I was thinking about the best way to observe Hanukkah on the blog, and I decided that the most appropriate thing would be to write a post and see if it, too, could last for eight days. So here goes. I hope you enjoy it. Now go put on a yarmulke, tell your friends Monica and Veronica, and rock out on your harmonica while you listen to the LeeVees or Adam Sandler’s “Chanukah Song.” Whatever you do, I hope you have a happy, happy, happy, happy Hanukkah!
(And don’t worry, I’ll be back with new posts real soon. I’m not really taking an eight-day vacation.)
In one week you will know what made the cut for A Very Marty Xmas 2007. For now, I just thought I’d hype up the mix a little. I’m real happy with the finished product and can’t wait for you all to hear it. Now, if only I could figure out how to make multiple copies on my Mac without using iTunes. Anybody know?
Perhaps the best thing about Thanksgiving coming so early this year is that it means the Christmas season is that much longer. And how much fun is it to walk into stores and see so much activity and color, and hear Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” (one of my all-time favorite holiday tunes) or other songs on the radio, and just generally see people in good moods? It happens every year at this time and it’s so brief that I enjoy it that much more.
Of course, the other benefit to the longer season is that it gives me more time to work on A Very Marty Xmas 2007, which, believe it or not, is just about finished (yes, already). In hindsight, last year’s mix wasn’t the most festive-sounding one, so I’m going more old school this year with an emphasis on jolly-ness. I don’t want to ruin any surprises about the CD’s contents, but I thought I would post briefly about my brand new favorite tune, which ironically (given what I’ve just written) is the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.” Yes, I know this is not a new song (Todd actually tried to get me into it two years ago), but it’s one I’ve really only discovered in the past couple weeks, thanks largely to KT Tunstall’s great cover on her new holiday CD (available exclusively at Target). This is not the happiest of holiday tunes, and the lyrics most definitely aren’t the most festive (“Happy Christmas your arse, I pray God it’s our last”), but believe me when I say that this is one classic that deserves to be heard. Kirsty MacColl’s voice and the Irish melody are just beautiful, and they disguise such a sad song with a whimsical sound. If you’re having a hard time getting into the holiday spirit, click here and listen for yourself.
“I’m just a songwriter,” one of the six — count ’em, six — Bob Dylan stand-ins says during I’m Not There. Well, forgive me for calling this character a liar, but as the film makes clear, Bob Dylan isn’t just anything. Todd Haynes’ portrait of the man born Robert Zimmerman paints him as a poet, an actor, a troubador, a misunderstood genius, an ahead-of-his-time songwriter, a lost man, etc.
Bob Dylan is many things to many people, and to say that I’m Not There doesn’t give a definitive answer about the man isn’t to say it misses the boat. Rather, in celebrating many aspects of Dylan, it reaches near-great status. Continue reading
Longtime readers of this blog know how much I loved the movie Once when I saw it this past summer.
So when my friend Nina tipped me off that the film’s stars, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, were coming to Boston to do a concert to promote their album, The Swell Season, I didn’t hesitate to get tickets.
And I’m happy to report that while the concert on Wednesday night didn’t recreate the same sense of euphoria that the movie did, it was still a damn good night of music that only makes me love the movie more. Continue reading
A Bruce Springsteen concert isn’t just any concert. It’s practically a religious experience.
And Sunday night’s show at the TD BankNorth Fleet Boston Garden Center was no exception.
This was, I believe, my fourth time seeing Bruce live (including the 1999 reunion tour when I had seats third row center, thisclose to the stage), and again, he didn’t disappoint.
Somehow I was able to get real good seats for Sunday’s show — Loge level, center, facing the stage, right in between Bruce and Steve Van Zandt — and it was an awesome evening. (No surprise.) Continue reading
One personality trait I’ve always been proud of is my ability to stay even-keeled and not let anything get me too bent out of shape. But every now and then, I do get really pissed off. If I’m at work when this happens, I just vent through some music. Green Day tends to come out at these times. If I want to internalize it and calm myself down, I listen to their “Give Me Novacaine.” But if I’m beyond internalizing, I put on something like “Basket Case.” Or maybe I’ll play something by the Killers. Perhaps “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine.” A few years back, I’d play something like Counting Crows’ “Have You Seen Me Lately?” So I put this question out to you, my dear readers: I’m really pissed off right now. What’s a good song to play? Put your answer below in the comments field. Thanks.
How great — and rare — is it when Ticketmaster works like it should?
At 10 a.m. Monday I logged on to get my Bruce Springsteen tickets, and believe it or not, I got ’em.
No problems.
Piece of cake.
I got right in and snagged a pair for Sunday night, loge level, right in front of the stage — before the scalpers could get all the good seats.
According to Backstreets, apparently enough people complained about the original on-sale date — which was supposed to be Saturday, same day as Yom Kippur — that Bruce and/or Ticketmaster changed the on-sale date to Monday morning. That rocks.
So, I’ve got no complaints about Ticketmaster this time. I just wanted to say a public WOO HOO!!!! I’m real psyched for this show.
November 18 can’t come soon enough.
Another VMAs show, another few hours of my life wasted. No comment on Britney’s “performance” is really necessary. And Gym Class Heroes for best new artist, in a year where they were competing against Amy Winehouse and Carrie Underwood? Please. At least the show was two hours long this year instead of the usual three. If I have anything of any substance to say, it’s that Alicia Keys’ cover of George Michael’s “Freedom 90” was alright, but it only reminded me of how awesome George Michael’s own acoustic version of the song on the MTV 10 show in 1991 was. Here’s the clip. It’s better than anything on the VMAs this year was.
Martin's Musings 