Feb 262011
Sounds of the Hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!
In this week’s edition of Saturday Night Shut-In Mr. Moderator attempts to send some healing love vibrations toward a friend in need and a friend indeed, the Townsman who keeps the trains running on time, sammymaudlin. The Back Office misses his ready laugh in our staff planning sessions.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-17.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 17][Note: The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player. In fact, you can even set your iTunes to search for an automatic download of each week’s podcast.]
The Mandom theme in all its testostereophonic glory! Your boys could learn a lot from that clip too, but they may not be ready for it.
Are we ever ready for that, BigSteve? Sometimes a man’s just gotta go for it.
Nice show, Mod. I especially liked the Wire tune. However, I beg to differ on Wire’s first few albums: I think “Pink Flag” is great.
I just remembered: Monday is sammy’s birthday!
I laughed a lot at this. Every time I hear the Talking Heads, I do.
I am digging that John Vanderslice tune. It’s funny, recently when I hear a singer/songwriter-esque tune with strings like that, it’s Andrew Bird and I keep meaning to check out his stuff. But the dumb thing is that I got the Vanderslice album last week, only played it once and didn’t recognize it when it came on the podcast. Now I’m listening to that album some.
Does Aimee Mann have a rep of being difficult? I’m not aware of it. Perhaps Fiona Apple is difficult, but I have a feeling she’s no more difficult than any other discerning artist. Jon Brion’s solo album is a strange affair, having been rejected by a major label, it is somewhat scrappy in a “White Album” kind of way, fairly different from his own high-concept productions. Rhett Miller covered one of the songs from Brion’s solo album, but his version is utterly lacking in any verve.
In fact, that Rhett Miller is a person I struggle with. For some reason, I know his solo albums but hardly anything by his band, the Old 97’s. I don’t know of any other bands where the lead singer has a solo career going on the side. That is strange to me. His first album was produced by Jon Brion and it is so stripped down, I really disliked it at first. But his next two records were more glossy and produced and I really dislike those. Meanwhile, the first one grew on me a lot. It’s a good album to get our your guitar and strum along with. But also, having heard the milquetoast albums Miller made with other producers, I really appreciate what Brion was doing with the first one.
I was thinking of you, cher, while playing that Vanderslice song – you and HVB, who’s a big Jason Falkner fan. Funnier yet, I had a dream last night that my family and I went to see Todd Rundgren at the Tower and we were seated next to you and a few friends. I don’t think we’ve ever met, but you somehow knew who I was an introduced yourself. You were a good egg in person too!
That is funny. Years ago, I put myself on WXPN’s mailing list as Todd Rundgren, my parents still get occasional flyers and such. I haven’t been to the Tower in eons, I love that place. Truth is, in person, I’m a complete bastard!
That most recent Jason Falkner album, “all quiet on the noise floor” seems to take a few steps forward and a few steps back. The music itself, I think, is less forced and ponderous. But the lyrics, which have also been somewhat pretentious in the past, are now overly simplified with lots of dumb rhymes. I was playing it while working and when another person entered the room I became self-conscious about the dopey lyrics I was forcing my coworker to hear, so I nixed Falkner for a Bowie album.