Tim Riley's Blog, page 25

MUCKRACK SHOUTOUT: MUSIC MONDAY (BEEFHEART)

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MUSIC MONDAY
 
from Muckrack daily: Don Van Vliet, or Captain Beefheart, died at the weekend aged 69. Tim Riley of NPR retweets Billy Bragg's link to Beefheart's "10 Commandments of Guitar Playing: Your guitar is a divining rod". Rolling Stone's coverage is here and the first part of a BBC documentary here.
 
OK Go's Damien Kulash writes in the WSJ today about "The New Rock Star Paradigm" or how to make it without a record label.
 
Jon Healey at the LA Times blogs about Cricket's new Muve Music, a bundled subscription service for mobile music downloads. He writes: "The most notable aspect of Muve may be that it's designed from scratch as a service for phones, optimized for a mobile network. It's not an add-on to a PC-based service."
 
Jim Fusili at the Wall Street Journal links to Paste Magazine's "20 Best New Bands of 2010".
 
And, just in time, Gigwise has put together a collection of the Worst Christmas Album Covers Ever.(via @popdose) to go with their Worst Album Covers of 2010 from last week...
TR: Way down in in diddy-wah-diddy: Ben Ratliff in the NYTimes

Related articlesCaptain Beefheart: Influential singer who brought the avant garde to rock music before forging a successful career as a painter (independent.co.uk)RIP Captain Beefheart (chicagonow.com)Captain Beefheart, who has died aged 69, was provocative and unpredictable (guardian.co.uk)

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COHEN, SANCTIMONIOUS: Next thing you know, Red Sox fans will be swaying to this song in the stands.
Another year over: Fimoculous continues its list aggregating, send yours to Rex.
see also: Huffposts's List of Best Book Lists
Billboard Year-End Lists
Hip-Hop Dominates iTunes
Publisher's Weekly Best Books [image error] [image error] [image error]

MORE TO COME

Image by Miguel Ramirez via Flickr

from Publisher's Marketplace (12/15/10): Music historian and journalist Tim Riley's JOHN ONO LENNON: THE LIFE AND THE MUSIC, an examination of John Lennon's life and creative legacy, covering everything from the widely misunderstood origins of "Working Class Hero" to Lennon's epic romance with Yoko Ono, sharing insight into the emotional conceptions and musical evolution of the songs that for so many of us have become part of our own personal history, to Gretchen Young at Hyperion, for publication Fall 2011, in a significant deal, by John Taylor (Ike) Williams at Kneerim & Williams (world). Related articlesYoko Ono Recreates John Lennon's 'War Is Over' Poster in 100 Languages (spinner.com)John Lennon's 10 Best Songs, as chosen by Yoko Ono (current.com)The Best of the John Lennon Tributes (rollingstone.com)

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QUOTES OF THE WEEK: "Oh How I Love Jesus" (Disc 30, Track 16): "...a tremendous amount, as it happens," Jon Caramanica, reviewing Presley's THE COMPLETE ELVIS PRESLEY MASTERS (30 CDs, RCA) (see completeelvis.com)

Related articlesHoliday Gift Guide: Music Boxed Sets (nytimes.com)Beethoven: Late Quartets - Tokyo String Quartet (guardian.co.uk)David Thomson on Tina Fey: "If there's anyone Fey reminds me of, it's Elaine May (maybe the funniest woman in America in the early 1960s)." (Don't resist that killer link, chuckles galore.)
Jack Shafer on Julian Assange: "...Oh, sure, he's a pompous egomaniac sporting a series of bad haircuts and grandiose tendencies. And he often acts without completely thinking through every repercussion of his actions. But if you want to dismiss him just because he's a seething jerk, there are about 2,000 journalists I'd like you to meet..."
The Karzai Brothers (le show parody), "From Afghanistan Public Radio: Where you give the tote bags to us!"
PROPS: to winners of the Deems-Taylor Awards (adjudicated by a team including "choreographic pianist/composer" Eleonor Sandresky), especially David Hajdu, for Heroes and Villains.

CELEBS SAY THE DARNDEST THANGS

Andrew Zuckerman, Music (Abrams Books), iPad app

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KILL THIS DOG

DRUNK, STONED, BRILLIANT, DEAD: The Writers and Artists Who Made the national Lampoon Insanely Great, by Rick Meyerowitz 

"Well, this is a book done by an artist. I waited 35 years for some writer to tell the story. And they didn't do it. When I decided to do this book, my thought was, here's a chance to do a book that includes the artist. The magazine really was built, in a lot of ways, around its imagery. And its imagery was fantastic. There was a team of people that were supplying those images. Like Michael Doret, who did a few things for them. Or Mara McAfee. There doesn't appear to be any one place where you could go to find her work, and I decided not to do a chapter on her, but I thought she was really important. Did you feel I short-changed some people? Or do you think the book had balance?..."

Related articlesNational Lampoon's Golden Age: 'Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead' (huffingtonpost.com)Read This Review or . . . (online.wsj.com)You Are Here: Mapping The Pyschogeography of NYC (coolhunting.com)Literary Death Match at the Texas Book Festival [Reading Preview] (austinist.com)The Week in WFMU: 10/11 - 10/17 (wfmu.org)Holiday Gift Guide: Coffee Table Books (nytimes.com)So when can we expect the complete NP in digital form? 

Meyerowitz quote from Mark's Very Large National Lampoon Site

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Cover of Booker T. & The MG's

Digitally enhanced combovers for aesthetically thirsty underdawgs...
More Keef Ink: The redoubtable Bill Wyman (yes, that Bill Wyman) prints a scathingly ravaged letter from brother Jagger about Life with a capital L. One of the better band briefs yet wrought, outflanking the need for Sir Mick to write his own. BEST OMITTED SUBTEXT: why Jagger never warned Lennon off Allen Klein.  
Followup on Wyman's Hitsville here. 
Same Old: For a book I admire, I'd be a lot more tempted to go along with "exuberant glimpse into the American character" if Freidwald weren't such a prig when it comes to rock'n'roll. Choice Spam Subject lines, cont: "Make that your girl was happy!"Followup on Obama's Stewart appearance: Harry Shearer's "Yes We Can, But"Item E: The new edition of David Thompson's Biographical Dictionary of Film omits this entry on Heath Ledger, but the London Review of Books carried it online: 

I found it easier to 'lose' myself in his Joker in The Dark Knight. Much of that performance lay in the dazzle of the make-up and the showiness of the director's style. It didn't help Ledger in a key moment (where he threatens Maggie Gyllenhaal's character) that the camera insisted on whirling around the two of them while Ledger's authority begged for stillness. The most interesting thing about that film was his voice and his way with words. That's where Ledger began to open up the chilly, demented humour of the Joker and its wounded philosophy. A lot of acting in films is being watchful, and waiting and listening. Ledger won his Oscar when the Joker talked and a warped mind flowered.

 Her Reptilean Brain Loves Cognitive Dissonance: Rosanne Cash on Cleartunes, iPhone tuner app

Item F: Proof that Professor El should have recorded Get Happy with Booker T and the MGs:



...Too late! John Legend already thought of it! 

CASTING BEYOND NOWHERE BOY

Image by triley60 via Flickr

...But Tim Riley, who just finished his big bio John Ono Lennon, hails Nowhere Boy's musical authenticity and "weird mother/son/aunt love triangle, one of the most screwed-up relationships ever." Riley screened it for his Emerson College students, who loved it, though for them it was "a weird time warp." Keith Richards they know (if only from Pirates of the Caribbean). "Their parents dragged them to Rolling Stones shows." But early Beatles seem remote. Riley salutes Aaron Johnson's sensitive Lennon. (Johnson is also hottish thanks to Kick-Ass, startlingly nominated this week for best picture and director in the British Independent Film Awards). He loves Duff as Lennon's nutty, slutty, creative ma. "She's fabulous. She overdid it." Riley thinks less of Scott-Thomas. "She underdid it. We have lots of evidence Mimi was much fiercer and meaner and more physically violent than in this movie." -- Tim Appelo in the Hollywood Reporter

Here's Riley's cast: 

Lennon: Ken Osmond (Eddie Haskell) mashed up with Robert Mitchum... (more)

Related articlesNowhere Boy (blog riley)Sam Taylor-Wood: I'd love another child with Aaron Johnson (telegraph.co.uk)Yoko Ono John Lennon 70th Birthday Tribute (popcrunch.com)John Winston Ono Lennon, Everyman (oup.com)FBI seizes John Lennon's fingerprints in NYC (omg.yahoo.com)

DISCOGRAPHIES AT 140CPT

Image by Howdy, I'm H. Michael Karshis via Flickr

Maybe flavor of the month, but @Discographies has its moments: 

Big Star/Nick Drake: 1 Immortal songs about hope; 2 and girls; 3 and loss, time-traveling forward to a future that would someday hear them.

And it's NOT Xgau. Oh, can we make requests? Captain Beefheart, Velvet Underground, Beach Boys, Byrds. 
Eyeweekly.comNME.co.ukPoptenPaste.comRelated articles by ZemantaSumming up bands' careers in 140 characters (holykaw.alltop.com)Bands careers in 140 characters (wiretotheear.com)Remember That Kerith Ravine and Cpt. Nemo Split Seven-Inch? (buzzgrinder.com)

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Ephemera for Complicated Souls...



Quote of the Week: Of all the preposterous things Keith Richards said on Fresh Air last week, his Altamont quote has to be the most offensive (cue: 27:40): "Meredith [Hunter], who went down in this scene... he was asking for trouble... "



Right, that's what we've all learned from Altamont: blame the victim. Horse-hockey. At the end he signs off saying, "Nice try, Terri," which goads her into a huge laugh. Here's your new Frank Sinatra: irresistible musician, repulsive human being.

Almost ironically, the BBC gave the beast his best visual description: "a prune's wallet."

Sideways by disassociation: Greil Marcus guest blogs on Kael, Dylan, Morrison, and Walter Mosley.

Preferred Search Munchkin: Chrome's Ozone extension, ignores the riff-raff.