We're back!
My two-week contract is finished, I got a good chunk of my tuition paid for, and we've got three weeks of music sitting in the This Week In Braille pool, ready to get passed on to your eardrums!
This week I am testing out a CD mix I'm making for someone. I originally was going to simply make a Sonics mix, but that blew up into 4+ hours of music, so I thought I'd try it out on you. The idea that I am going for is summery music; by which I don't necessarily mean music about summer, but music that breathes well. Summer to me is about open windows, whether in cars, at home, or out and about, there's something magical about the way the air moves in the summer, especially at night. So this is my first stab at a mix of music entirely meant to be breathable. So let me know what you think, if I'm going to make a four CD mix tape for someone, I want to know its going to be listened to!
This Week's Featured Artist: The Sonics
This Week's Featured Album: ( The Alan Lomax Collection ) Southern Journey Volume 08: Velvet Voices
The Sonics are the original Seattle garage band. They emerged on the scene with their driving guitars and screaming lyrics in 1965 with their stellar debut Here are the Sonics! It's fun, lyrically and musically, and its great when you need a break from the music it inspired. As for Alan Lomax, every day I wake up I am thankful for the work this man did. As a field agent for the American Library of Congress, he and his father travelled around the U.S. with portable recording units going into communities, work fields, even prisons, in order to record American folk music from its sources. He later travelled around the world recording traditional folk music in England, Spain, Italy, The Carribean, even as far away as Yugoslavia and Romania! He preserved a musical legacy that the world is quickly forgetting, and he left important marks both on musicology and the history of human music. Southern Journey Volume 08: Velvet Voices is a devastatingly incredible collection of traditional songs from America's Eastern shores recorded live by Lomax. I lack the words to describe how incredible and moving this album is. Go buy it now, and see the power of music in the hands of everyday people!
Here's a little show we like to call:
This Week in Braille or Songs in the Key of Summer
- Anita O'Day; Love Me or Leave Me (2:34) from Verve: The Divas Series {Neither of the songs in the video is for this song, but its too damn good not to play!}
- Richie Havens; Here Comes the Sun (3:44) from Alarm Clock {This isn't the video for this song either, but Anita reminded me of another great 60's music documentary!}
- Third Rail; Run, Run, Run (1:56) from Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968
- Willy Deville; It's So Easy (2:11) from Death Proof Soundtrack
- [Featured Artist:] The Sonics; Shot Down (2:13) from Boom
- Betty Davis; F.U.N.K. (4:26) from Nasty Gal
- Parliament; Up for the Down Stroke (5:10) from Up for the Down Stroke
- Françoise Hardy; La fille avec toi (2:40) from The "Yeh-Yeh" Girl from Paris
- Dusty Springfield; Sunny (1:56) from Where Am I Going?
- Patti Smith; Gloria (5:58) from Horses
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs; Down Boy (3:54) from Is Is
- Girl in a Coma; Clumsy Sky (3:50) from Both Before I'm Gone
- King Khan and the Shrines; Land of the Freak (3:33) from What Is?!
- [Featured Artist:] The Sonics; Have Love, Will Travel (2:40) from Here are the Sonics!
- MGMT; Time to Pretend (4:21) from Oracular Spectacular {Video takes a while to load, but it sure looks purty!}
- Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin; Modern Mystery (4:20) from Pershing
- Bill Callahan; The Wheel (4:04) from Woke on a Whaleheart
- Adele; My Same (3:16) from 19 {I think I'm in love with this woman!}
- Basia Bulat; In the Night (2:58) from Oh, My Darling {I already knew I was in love with this woman!}
- Bessie Smith; I'm Down in the Dumps (3:15) from Mother of the Blues
- Syd Dale; Walk and Talk (2:23) from Spiderman The Animated Series
- Stevie Wonder; Superstition (4:24) from Supa Funky
- James Brown; I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door I'll Get It Myself) (4:31) from Sex Machine Live
- Wimple Witch; Save My Soul (3:06) from Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969
- [Featured Artist:] The Sonics; Dirty Robber (2:03) from Here are the Sonics!
- The Amboy Dukes; Baby, Please Don't Go (5:39) from Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968
- Modest Mouse; 3rd Planet (3:59) from The Moon and Antarctica
- Anita O'Day; Sing, Sing, Sing (3:32) from Verve: The Divas Series
- Carmen McRae; Sunday (4:09) from The Great American Songbook
- The Beatles; And Your Bird Can Sing (2:02) from Revolver (UK Pressing)
- Bill Whithers; Heartbreak Road (3:05) from Justments
- Andrew Bird; Imitosis (4:00) from Armchair Apocrypha
- Devendra Banhart; At the Hop (2:15) from Niño Rojo
- The Coasters; Down in Mexico (3:23) from Death Proof Soundtrack
- The Birds; Say Those Magic Words (3:15) from Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969
- The Gossip; Night (2:27) from Movement
- The Dø; On My Shoulders (5:21) from A Mouthful
- Compay Segundo; Chan Chán (4:15) from El Compadre Again
- Bob Marley and the Wailers; Coming in from the Cold (4:30) from Uprising
- The Aggrolites; Countryman Fiddle (3:50) from The Aggrolites
- Creedence Clearwater Revival; Pagan Baby (6:25) from Pendulum
- David Bowie; I Wish You Would (2:48) from Pin Ups
- The Deadly Snakes; Make a Fool Out of Me (3:24) from I'm Not Your Soldier Anymore
- Eartha Kitt; I Want to be Evil (3:32) from That Fabulous Eartha Kitt
- Indigo Girls; Romeo and Juliet (4:48) from Rites of Passage
- Frank Zappa; Trouble Every Day (5:49) from Strictly Commercial
- Gogol Bordello; Occurrence on the Border (Hopping on a Pogo-Gypsy Stick) (3:26) from Multi Kontra Culti Vs. Irony
- Gogol Bordello; Start Wearing Purple (3:43) from Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike
- The Jacksons; ABC (3:00) from Motown's Greatest Hits 1969 - 1975
- Joe Dassin; Les Champs Elysees (2:39) from The Darjeeling Limited Soundtrack
- Jens Lekman; Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo (4:16) from Night Falls Over Kortedala
- Kimya Dawson; Tire Swing (3:07) from Juno Soundtrack
- Smog; The Well (7:01) from A River Ain't too Much to Love
- Le Loup; To the Stars! To the Night! (3:14) from The Throne Of The Third Heaven Of The Nations' Millennium General Assembly
- Moriarty; Jimmy (4:25) from Gee Whiz but this is a Lonesome Town
- [Featured Album:] Ed Young & Hobart Smith; Joe Turner (3:23) from The Alan Lomax Collection - Southern Journey Volume 08: Velvet Voices
- [Featured Album:] Robert Beane & The Bright Light Quartet; Hey, Hey, Honey (2:12) from The Alan Lomax Collection - Southern Journey Volume 08: Velvet Voices
- [Featured Album:] Nat Rahmings & Ed Young & Hobart Smith; I Got a Home (2:32) from The Alan Lomax Collection - Southern Journey Volume 08: Velvet Voices
- Regina Spektor; Your Honor (2:10) from Soviet Kitsch
- The National; Apartment Story (3:35) from Boxer
- Sufjan Stevens; The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us! (5:23) from Come on Feel the Illinoise
- Neutral Milk Hotel; King of Carrot Flowers Part 1 (2:01) from In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
- New Buffalo; It's True (3:33) from Somewhere, anywhere.
- M. Ward; Chinese Translation (4:01) from Post-War
- Sia; The Girl You Lost to Cocaine (2:40) from Some People Have Real Problems
- She & Him; Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? (2:31) from Volume One
- Nina Simone; Ain't Got No/ I Got Life (Take 3) (3:10) from Saga of the Good Life and Hard Times
- Miles Davis; It Never Entered My Mind (5:27) from The Legendary Prestige Quintet Sessions
- Anne Briggs; Summer's In (5:16) from Sing a Song for You
Let us know what you think of this mix at thisweekinbraille@hotmail.com !
Hear you next week for an all-new set of your weekly fix of music!
