Category: Music

More Interesting Blogfolk

I’ve been discovering more interesting blogfolk lately. Denise and Dinah are both very nice people with interesting weblogs. I’m adding both of them to my links. And Tom included me in his celebrity trash-digging, which is nice, actually.

I finally found:

  • PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea ($16.99)

I really really want to like this CD. I’ve been a big fan since the beginning (I paid $30 for her first CD, Dry, when it was only available on import from the UK), but she’s lost me as she’s drifted away from simple guitar and voice arrangements. This is better than her last, but still not up there with Dry or Rid of Me. I’m hoping it grows on me. She’s really decided to go with a whole Patti Smith sound. One thing that’s always bugged me is when non-American musicians try to adopt American music. U2’s Rattle and Hum still annoys me for this reason, and I’m hoping I can learn to like PJ again.

Hornby on Kid A

From the October 30 New Yorker, Nick Hornby (author of High Fidelity) on Radiohead’s Kid A: “Nobody is asking Radiohead not to grow, or change, or do something different. It would be nice, however, if the band’s members recognized that the enormous, occasionally breathtaking gifts they have–for songwriting, and singing, and playing, and connecting, and inspiring–are really nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, they might even come in handy next time around.”

Purchased:

  • U2 – All That You Can’t Leave Behind ($13.99)
  • DVD – American Beauty ($21.99)

Great Big Sea

Just one CD purchased the entire weekend in Newfoundland

  • Great Big Sea – Road Rage ($19.99)

Great Big Sea are a band from St. John’s that are pretty well known all over Canada. This is a live CD and although the band are known for their raucous yet intimate party-like shows (I’ve seen them twice in the past 5 years), this recording doesn’t really convey that. Still, I bought it in St. John’s and spent a few minutes with the 50-something shopkeeper talking about them. In an ironic twist, he told me the Canadian Alliance party swiped one of their songs for their campaign and have been told to stop using it. Imagine, a band from Newfoundland being used to promote a party that would probably like to surgically amputate Newfoundland and push it into the sea.