Sun, & Autumn.

Two analogies from the Mountain Goats:

"...the sun peeks in like a killer through the curtain..."
-from "The First Few Desperate Hours" from the album "Tallahassee" (2002).

"...Autumn came around like a drifter to an on-ramp..."
-from "In the Hidden Places" from the album "Get Lonely" (2006).

Free-Boaters!

When I saw Wilco open for Bob Dylan at Duluth's Bayfront Park last month, these folks heard the concert without having to buy a ticket:

(click image for full-screen)

Free. Jazz. (or, Sidney & her man Clovis)

May I suggest that you set aside an hour before clicking through to listen to Jason Moran's amazing (and free!) "Live: Time On The Quilts Of Gee's Bend" Suite?

From the NPR website:

Jason Moran, composer and piano
Alicia Hall Moran, vocals
Bill Frisell, guitar
Tarus Mateen, bass
Nasheet Waits, drums

"Good morning Baltimore! Every day's like an open door."

"My ma tells me no 
   but my feet tell me go!"

-from "Hairspray"'s opening song "Good Morning Baltimore!"


Tickets are still available for "Hairspray in Concert" narrated by Mr. John Waters with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in Meyerhoff Hall, Baltimore, tonight and tomorrow night, plus Saturday and Sunday matinees. Saw the world premier last night at Strathmore; laughed so hard I cried. And how often does that happen at the symphony?


From the BSO website:

Jack Everly, conductor
John Waters, narrator (BSO debut)
Micky Dolenz, Wilbur Turnblad
Beth Leavel, Velma von Tussle
Paul Vogt, Edna Turnblad
Featuring:
Marissa Perry as "Tracy Turnblad"
Julie Kavanagh as "Penny Pingleton"
Nick Adams as "Link Larkin"
Rhiannon Hansen as "Amber von Tussle"
NaTasha Williams as "Motormouth Maybelle"
Marcus Terell as "Seaweed J. Stubbs"
Bret Shuford as "Corny Collins"
Alix Korey as "Female Authority Figure"
Chris Briante as "Male Authority Figure"
Also with: The Divas of Song (Natalie Renee, Nikki Stephenson, and Melissa VanPelt) as "The Dynamites."

One Night Only: The Brontes, Live!

We loved Dizzy Miss Lizzie's production of "The Brontes" at last summer's Capital Fringe Festival, and next Monday (January 7th) at 6 PM, NeuroCooking friends in the National Capital Area have a chance to see it at the Kennedy Center, for free.

"I used to think I was alone. Well, I ain't alone no more." [Special Kickin' in 2013 Rockin' New Year's Day Repost!]

Tom Morello's song about his guitar is uplifting:

"Unknown engines underneath the city..."

You can hear "Transcendental Youth," the new album from the Mountain Goats that is due out next week, streaming live (and free) at this link, and you can see Mr. John Darnielle introduce and perform "Harlem Roulette" (from the new album) right here:

"I feel / I feel like I am falling / and it feels / it feels like it's okay..."

"...we ain't nothing / but we are something..."

- from "Fall Apart with You" by Alejandro Escovedo (who will be appearing at Maxwell's in Hoboken on Monday!)

"h" vs. "H" (and the Mountain Goats, Down Under)

The Mountain Goats rocking Melbourne's Toff, 9 May 2012 (iPhone photo).

Last week I was in Melbourne, Australia, for the 20th annual meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. Melbourne is a great place for live music, and, as it happened, I found out in advance that the Mountain Goats would be in town! So, when I travelled Down Under I did so with a ticket for what was to be a sold-out show at Melbourne's The Toff in Town.

How eager was I to see the Mountain Goats (whose songs I've loved for years, but whom I'd never seen live)? Let's just say I went to the Toff a whole day early, to check out the venue, which is how I came to see Max Savage and the False Idols play soul-tinged country-western Rock-n-Roll:

Max Savage and the False Idols at the Toff, 8 May 2012 (camera: Ricoh GX-100).

However, dear NeuroCooking friends, my topic today may not be singer-songwriters, or rock-n-roll, or intimate venues for live music, or fantastic audiences who shout out the choruses to early Mountain Goats songs, allowing Mr. John Darnielle to sing just the verses, or even the persistent paradox of how listening to songs about self-destructive persons engaged in abusive relationships can be uplifting. No, my topic today may be beer.

I like hoppy beers, like India Pale Ales. When I visit someplace with unfamiliar offerings on tap, especially overseas, I will ask the bartender to recommend a beer. So, that Tuesday night at the Toff, I asked the bartender:

"What's hoppy? Like an IPA?"

And he replied:

"Yes. Would you like a taste?"

I did a double-take, and looked at the taps, and yes, they had a beer on tap called "Hoppy."

And yes, it was.

This "hoppy" vs. "Hoppy" reminded me, instantly, of the old "Who's on first" routine:

It's too late to see Abbott and Costello live, but, thankfully, it's not too late to see the Mountain Goats, which I recommend that you do, wherever and whenever you can!

"We love you, John!" The Mountain Goats at the Toff, 9 May 2012 (iPhone photo).

James Charles Marshall, 1923-2012

"You come running in on platform shoes
with Marshall stacks
to at least just give us a clue..."

R.I.P. Jim Marshall.

Ms. LaVette in NYC!

NeuroCooking friends in the New York City area have just three more nights to see Ms. Bettye LaVette at the Café Carlyle.

First annual mid-December NeuroCooking holiday gift recommendation!

Best gift for less than ten dollars for a lover of rock-and-roll:

"The Black Keys Live at the Crystal Ballroom" (2008) DVD. 

A superlative record of two gentlemen from Akron, Ohio, doing what they do so well.

Life imitates art (at highway speed).

Today, on the way home from work, I avoided traffic congestion by driving on the newly-opened InterCounty Connector. However, because the car's navigation system doesn't know about this brand-new (multi-billion dollar!) highway, its screen showed the car traveling overground, not on a road.

Which reminded me of "Survival Car" by Fountains of Wayne:

"Funny how the ground can find my wheels
I'm going where the road ain't there"

"Funny how the ground can find my wheels
I'm going where the road won't dare"

"I used to think I was alone. Well, I ain't alone no more."

Mr. Tom Morello's song about his guitar is uplifting:

"People have minds."

"In sum, bodies have brains. People have minds."

- from "Please Mind the Gap: How To Podcast Your Brain" by Karen Spaceinvaders on Continent ("Please click to listen to the mp3 files of deep brain recordings of individual brain cells, the smallest unit of the brain, in a whole, intact living brain.").

Summer's here and the time is right for a gerund in the street, boy.

Variations on a theme:

"Summer's here and the time is right for dancing in the street."

– Marvin Gaye, 1964.

"Summer's here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy."

– The Rolling Stones, 1968.

"Summer's here and the time is right for going racing in the street."

– Bruce Springsteen, 1978.

" ... music may help you build a healthier life and brighter future."

"Everything in your environment may have some impact on your health.

Yes, that even includes music -- music is an important part of our 'environment'.

...

... see how music may help you build a healthier life and brighter future."

-from the NIEHS Kids' Pages.

"Music is ... "

Listening to a collection of recordings by the late Mr. Buddy Holly, arranged in chronological order, we noticed that an important element in the later work, which was lacking in some of the early recordings, was silence – the quiet between the notes that lets the notes stand out. And this reminded us of Claude Debussy's maxim:

"Music is the space between the notes."

Two young men from Akron, Ohio.

Now that the Black Keys have won a few Grammy awards, we thought we would mention that our favorite "record album" of theirs is not a CD, LP, or cassette, but rather a DVD: The Black Keys Live (2004).

"... in secluded parks and exclusive penthouses and furnished rooms, in cabin cruisers and cabs and cabanas ..."

Just one sentence about Frank Sinatra's recording of "In The Wee Small Hours of The Morning" from the 1966 Esquire magazine article "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" by Gay Taleese:

"Undoubtedly the words from this song, and others like it, had put millions in the mood, it was music to make love by, and doubtless much love had been made by it all over America at night in cars, while the batteries burned down, in cottages by the lake, on beaches during balmy summer evenings, in secluded parks and exclusive penthouses and furnished rooms, in cabin cruisers and cabs and cabanas -- in all places where Sinatra's songs could be heard were these words that warmed women, wooed and won them, snipped the final thread of inhibition and gratified the male egos of ungrateful lovers; two generations of men had been the beneficiaries of such ballads, for which they were eternally in his debt, for which they may eternally hate him."