Sam Gunderson - Let's Just Say Goodbye

I had a show at Lakeside tonight, but then the biggest December snowstorm of local recorded history happened. The show got postponed to tomorrow, due to the lack of an audience to play to. Nonetheless, my friend Sam Gunderson was one of the brave few in attendance, and he ended up sticking around until the last customer left after an early last call. He and I passed my guitar back and forth and sang for our friends, my Lakeside co-workers who'd toughed it out with us through the storm, while the night's last bits of business were being finished. This is an original song of Sam's, and while I presume to title it as "Let's Just Say Goodbye", it's definitely my favorite song of his, and it'll be on his upcoming solo album.



Sam will be playing at Lakeside Inn on Christmas Eve night, which happens to be my birthday eve, at 8:00.

I Want You Back (Jackson 5 cover)

This is from this past summer; I'd just purchased a loop sampler pedal for my guitar, and I'd just got the new iPhone, the one that could record video...I'd recorded this for kicks and then forgot it was there.



Goofy, I know...

SAM GUNDERSON @ LAKESIDE!!!

The above video is of the man we've just booked to play 4 of the 5 Thursday nights (the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th) in October at Lakeside Inn...sort of a special, one-time, artist-in-residency thing, you could say. The guy used to be the guitarist for Taylor Hicks'--the silver-haired American Idol dude--band and can totally bring it every time. I am super excited to get to see Sam so many times, and you should be too. Come on out, have some dranks, and watch a truly great musician do his thing. Without a cover charge, as always.

My Brother, the Hero

I've just arrived home from a day at work and am currently bathrobed and about to take a nap. My little brother Al, however, has been up to matters more consequential... just the usual, you know, like RESCUING FUCKING KITTENS IN IRAQ.




My brother rules.

Paul Shirley is an Idiot.

I may have missed the memo on this one, but since when are career journeyman pro basketball players--who have played for thirteen different teams, mind you--entitled to share their dubious opinions about music with millions of impressionable sports fans?!

Get a load of the crap that Paul Shirley just passed off as journalism in a guest piece he just wrote for ESPN.com. In it, the venerable Mr. Shirley makes his case that--drumroll, please...The Beatles are over-rated. A few of his talking points:

1. The Beatles are not better, by any measure, than The Guess Who, Fleetwood Mac, The Rolling Stones, or Creedence Clearwater Revival.
   
   
2. U2's album, "Achtung Baby" is superior to The Beatles' "Abbey Road". Which, by not too strechy an extension on my part, would seem to mean, to me at least, that "The Joshua Tree" ranks, somehow, somewhere below "Achtung Baby" as well.
   
   
3. Dean Koontz is a better writer than Bram Stoker because he's less boring.
   
   
4. The song "Eleanor Rigby", which Shirley labels as--and I quote--'primitive hackings,' is an inferior piece of music to Guns N' Roses' "November Rain" because the latter was released during the writer's lifetime and the former was not.
   
   
5. All Beatles fans born after the band's breakup are simply poseurs using the band's music (and mystique) as social currency to seem cool. [Ed. note: this is Shirley's least retarded point and I would only disagree with the "all" part.]
   
   
6. Oasis is better than the Beatles.

I mean, really...this asshole GOT PAID to write that shit. Just click the link and read the story...Shirley's retardation is on full display, courtesy of ESPN.com.

As for me, I'm off to find Ike Austin to see what he thinks about Radiohead's oeuvre. I'm sure you're all dying to know.

The Top 13 Albums Project

Any regular reader of my blog, if there is one, would know how much I like making best-of lists about the music I'm listening to. Well, dear regular reader, I just came across a website called The Top 13 Albums Project, where user-submitted lists of the top-13 albums of the 2000's will be compiled into an over-arching, democratically selected master list of the past decade of great music. There is a deadline of October 2nd, so get yours in as soon as you can. Here's what I just submitted as mine:

1. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot




2. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois




3. Calexico - Feast of Wire




4. British Sea Power - The Decline of British Sea Power




5. Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary




6. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago




7. Arcade Fire - Funeral




8. Bright Eyes - Digital Ash in a Digital Urn




9. M. Ward - Post-War




10. Radiohead - Amnesiac




11. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell




12. Girl Talk - Night Ripper




13. The Decemberists - Picaresque

The NYC PS22 Chorus - Don't Stop Believin'

I just saw a video of this amazing elementary school chorus from New York City. Their teacher...does God's work. Nothing to add; just beautiful.