birdmen are essential

The new statue of Shaquille O'Neal on campus. I wish birds would line up on that section of the backboard.


Wednesday:
Richard Swift, Walt Wolfman [His records are like Oreo's: I could eat them all day and forget I ate anything]
Is Tropical, South Pacific [These bands sound like the presets on the Casios that used be on display department stores, or that they think Joy Division oughta be joyous if they are gonna call themselves that]
The dB's, The Sound of Music and "Revolution of the Mind" [#JangleWallStreet]
Radio Birdman, The Essential Radio Birdman [As you will see below, birdmen are essential]
Blue Öyster Cult, Tyranny and Mutation [My favorite band from 5th grade. I forgot Patti Smith did stuff with them]
The Chesterfield Kings, The Mindbending Sounds of the Chesterfield Kings

Thursday:
Thomas and the People, Beneath the Trees [streaming from their site; kinda like DMB without the bad DMB parts]
Lynyrd Skynyrd, Gimme Back My Bullets [Their plane crashed on the way to Baton Rouge 34 years ago today. The linked article contends that in 1977, Aerosmith was going to rent the same plane and crew and thought they weren't up to their standards.]
Tom Waits, Real Gone [After years of mythos-eating devotion, I now generally like everything about Tom Waits except listening to his records, but I still do it. Why isn't his forthcoming one Bad as Me growling away on NPR Music like it should be?]
Tedechi Trucks Band, Revelator [recommended by McSweeney's]

• Congrats to DownBeat editor Aaron Cohen on the publication of his 33 1/3 book on Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace! Can't wait to read it. Thanks for my brief appearances in DownBeat and the Believer, I sometimes get stuff in the mail addressed like this:
  
  
  I may co-opt this for my business card. Alex V. Cook: freelance downbeat believer
     
• Once upon a time, television was an arena in which fearsome beauty was enacted.
  
  
  Keep watching; via the Rumpus. Lynda Carter + KISS + F E A T H E R S !
     
• Like I remember Boy George guest-starring on the A-Team, and the Village People performing on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Where did we go wrong as a culture? Reagan? It's not like we traded in spectacle for taste.
     
• I forgot all about Radio Birdman, Australia's first punk rock band, until I saw KISS in their avian finery up there. You did watch that video, right? I think Radio Birdman formed in the holding cell of the first prison colony transport schooner. They are like Blue Öyster Cult except more like poisoned blue öysters.
  
  
  Radio Birdman, "Descent into the Maelstrom"
      
• Last week when I saw Blitzen Trapper, I commented to a friend that they were knockin' on the door of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and should have just broken into a couple bars of "Sweet Home Alabama" like it seemed they wanted to mid-extended-ramble-jams. Think how thrilled everyone would have been. I feel that way when bands complain about hecklers yelling "Play 'Freebird'"; the complaint being a more pervasive cliche than the incident. Play it, then. Shut everybody up. Put away all the baggage you might have and "Freebird" is still a pretty great song.