Assorted Odds N Ends

Been having trouble sleeping tonight/this morning--partly on my own account, partly on others', and partly on the internet's account:

1.) LeRoi Moore (the mostly baritone saxophone player) of the Dave Matthews band died at the age of 46. Even though I sort of hate Dave's schtick, as a former (tenor--it's true!) saxophonist I gotta give love to the guy who was, for basically my entire life, the biggest public face of the fourth instrument I ever played to the point of love. I'll miss you, LeRoi.

2.) The RIAA-Matrix appears to have taken muxtape.com down indefinitely. Non-non-heinous!

3.) Andrew W. directed me towards a self-dubbed Texas "progressive bluegrass" group called Cadillac Sky, about whom yesterday's WaPo's Style section had some nice things to say.

3b.) You can stream their new album "Gravity's Our Enemy" in its entirety right here on CMT's website. My personal favorite songs of the bunch are, in complete agreement with the Post, "Baby Don't Cry," which is pretty titularly self-explanatory, and "Bible By The Bed," a dark story-song about domestic violence and its revenge. Most of the rest of the tunes, disappointingly, I found a little too clean and over-produced for my taste, but hey--that's Nashville for ya.

4.) Gosh...only 3 items so far and I've already mentioned the Dave Matthews Band, "progressive bluegrass," and hot-linked to the Country Music Channel. 18 year-old me would definitely kick my ass if he was around to see this outrageous guff; but, then again, 25 year-old me would probably just give him a joint and tell myself to chill.

4b.) Speaking of chilling, damn I miss someone...I fear I am becoming my blog's title.

5.) Umm, hey Kaiser Chiefs, I don't think Noel Gallagher really needed your help to drum up publicity for Oasis' first new album in, like, 3 years. Besides, I've heard the new KC album anyhow, and it certifiably blows trite, repetitious donkey dicks. Oh, and Nick: Noel's 41--not 50. Wanker.

6.) I have a random youtube-friend from Spain who does a really swell cover of Cat Power's "Good Woman," which I had actually posted the original of in my ALG Devastation mix last April:



7.) Only two more videos for this post, I swear! If you know me, you know that I love this song, which I'm posting not for redundancy's sake, but for comparative purposes which you'll understand after you see the promised third video. As far as I know, "Rocky Top" is the only state song about moonshine:




8.) These little Korean English-immersion students singing "Rocky Top" in their classroom is one of the cutest things I've seen online since that smiley-faced baby who did that serious face thing on command:




And with that, I'm out. Happy hump-day, folks!