Friday Music Videos

 Some time between 1979 and 1982 I started listening to Tom Waits. I saw him in concert at some point and continued to listen to him religiously for a long time and then listen sporadically although he is still a go to music fella in times of need. Via comes two videos of one interview, which are great for a variety of reason.





This comes from about the time I started paying attention.  Recently, I think yesterday, Waits released a video from his Bad as I Want to Be Album, which I got as a gift. What struck me on seeing it was the fact that it is clearly an anti-War on terror song and, whatismore, one the few that I can think from the present crop of whatsits:



Some of his more recent stuff is too something or another for me but this one seems to be a example of an man and musician trying to make sense of the horrors of permanent war and the misery it inflicts on soldiers.

Enjoy your weekend while you still have one. 

Cultural Transmission

From alert reader signs of the continuation of traditional German culture:

No This is Awful.

From Balloon Juice comes a French version of Dylan's I want You. It is especially bad and, indeed may be the worst cover in the history of the world.

And You Thought I Was Nuts

Neil Young and Crazy Horse sing Oh Susanna:

From Here to There

How do you go from vaguely Dylan incomprehensible poetry like this:



To full on political engagement like this



Or, for that matter, from comedic jazzy whatnot like this



 To the near madness of this



To the philosophical depth of this



And that is leaving aside one of the finest albums ever.

In other words, what seems today to be clear and certain will or might in the fullness of time become if not its opposite at least something both weird and wonderful. Or so I tell my self when surveying the current economy and my  place within it.

Memories, Memorials, and Poppies

For years now I have been buying a poppy on or around Memorial Day attaching it to the bike and removing one year later. For me, it is a symbol of the First World War in all its murderous fatuousness, silly stupid slaughter, and pointlessness and, consequently, a nearly perfect example of the misrule of the 1%, whether old school aristos or new  model plutocrats.

In that spirit some musical to contemplate the unnecessary misery imposed on most of us by a thoughtless, heedless, and  feckless minority:








Enjoy your weekend before the forces of reaction take it away.

One Other Thing

People often, well not really, ask me how do stay so cheerful, the occasional deranged rant at sociopathic motorists to one side, when things aren't going so well. It is stuff like this:



The whole song makes nothing like sense and yet watching it makes me, in any event, aware of the fact that outside the stupidity of neoliberalism and the deranged antics of the Right more generally that the world is filled with people whose first commitment is to joy and nonsense.

To Tell The Truth Or Parsing the 99%

Jacques Brel, who we have discussed before, was a wildly popular singer/song writer. In this song he, I think, makes a point about the constant grinding misery of being an unwilling pawn of a bunch of rich bastards who, like Mitt Romney, despise those of born to poor parents while also articulating the single most heartfelt desire of the rest of who squirm under their unfeeling thumbs and boot heels: to no longer be victims while refusing to be executioners.



And yes, if you are interested, I think there is  a link between Camus, and the Jansenists, notion of Deus absconditus and Brel's work, which is to the extent a better world awaits it awaits on some collective action that I, like Sterling Hayden, doubt will or can succeed.

Commerce and Art

Everybody, it's true, need a hook to sell whatever. However, I wonder why these four Norwegians picked ironic pixie women as their hook.  What the first two videos in which the ironic pixie women are ironically ironic and then the third in which four talented musicians make a joyful noise unto the lord, as it were.  As it comes up in the comments to one of them, I'll point out that while Katzenjammer may now mean hangover in German in the early modern period and at least through the 19th century it was German for Charivari.













 I came across this band via, of all people, Krugman. If you're interested, here is an hourish concert in Germany with the common language, natch, English. The video editing is sick making.


UPDATE:
By my count each one plays stringed instruments, drums, accordion, and keyboard and two play trumpets and three, I think, play the xylophone.

It really is a shame that the hour long concert dealio shows so little  of the audience as it is a nearly perfect example of the contemporary German at play, which is to say stiff and self-conscious.


UPDATE:

A video in Norwegian without subtitles of the band searching for Polar Bears:

Happy Families

Frank Zappa and his parents:

And you thought your parents and/or children didn't understand you, what do think Christmas was like at the Zappa household?

source

Icelandic

Bjork:



Adorable.

On a Lighter Note

I sort of remember listening to Jacques Brel in my early days. What strikes me now is the extent to which this haggard son of a cardboard manufacturer is the least likely Belgian/Flemish/Dutch international superstar. Here on drunken Fishermen bringing out their Dutchmen.




And on the life cycle of Bohemianism

Odd Songs

The lead singer plays the sax and they all smile manically.

A related mashup





Having nothing to do with anything

What's Wrong With These Videos?

Johny Cash at San Quentin:



And this:



No, I don't mean a country singer standing by the least among us but rather to paraphrase Blazing Saddles: Where's all the Black Folks At?

Not Tom Waits

Don't like Tom Waits? Dwight and Buck:

Musette, the Tango, and the Accordionation of World Culture

The accordion was the beat box of its day after the development of an industrial process that prices down dramatically. Shortly thereafter Mussette was born in  Paris and then spread to the rest of the world. I can't find it right now, but somewhere in my musical archive is a double disc of late 19th and early 20th century accordion music from around the world. Well worth finding. Fist up, Paris, second Gardel, one of the first international film/singing stars to die tragically, and last a Fin proving that passion and the tango have little to do with one another. Enjoy your weekend.