Cesaria Evora

is playing in Buenos Aires, at Luna Park tonight. I wish I could be there!



more songs here.

i am obsessed with Roisin Murphy

She is a singer. (that's "ro-shen" or "ro-shun" or something, in case you don't speak Irish) She used to be in a group called Moloko (I remember some friends recommending them to me in the nineties but I never fell in love with them until now). Then the past few months I would always hear her music coming from Julia's studio while I was working and then I started humming these songs all the time and had then I had to get the album (Overpowered) on my ipod and I'm listening to it all the time and I like it.



And THEN i went and looked on youtube at her videos and she has these amazing videos, i like her dancing and prancing and these RIDICULOUS outfits. I love them. I just want to watch Roisin Murphy videos all day. Now I am trying to listen to all the old Moloko albums because now that I know her I think I am going to love all of those too.



what is up with this jumpsuit and head-dress. it is awesome.

smog

went to see bill callahan (a/k/a smog) last night at niceto club. it was real good. he started out playing a whole string of favorite songs: river guard, our anniversary, blood red bird, i can't remember what else. i feel like the mother of the world. rock bottom riser.



in truth it was my third or fourth? time seeing him. a few years ago i was in the height of my smog obsession and he came to play a few nights in new york and friend of a friend was working as like the tour manager or something and he put me on the list to get in free, so i went to the show three nights in a row, without getting tired of it at all, only an increasing illusion that bill callahan was really my imaginary boyfriend because we were hanging out together every night. by "hanging out" i mean he was playing beautiful sad songs for me and 200 other people. i think at the bowery ballroom show i saw nick nolte descending from the balcony. he looked like the walking dead. at the hoboken show, bill callahan asked "what do you want me to play for the encore?" and i shouted "held!" and he made a face and said "okay, really I don't want to hear what you want me to play. i am just going to play what I want" and he did not play held. maybe he hates that song. maybe everyone always asks for that one. it's my favorite. he didn't play it last night either. the weird thing at the show last night was that at various points during the show, three people fainted near me. they weren't hanging out together or anything. they happened like twenty minutes apart. creepy. each time everyone was very polite about making way while they were carried outside. drugs? bad ventilation? the shittiest thing about Niceto Club is that there is really no ventilation and everyone smokes like crazy. The best thing about Niceto Club is it's like four blocks from home.
anyway, i haven't listened to smog so much in the past year or two, though i still love him. so it made me think of moments from the past. sitting alone in the moldy basement at 206 skillman all day, making things out of paper and glue, and listening to the "supper" disc which Ben B had burned for me. Or drawing in my room at night when I lived upstate in Rosendale, hearing the sound of crickets and coyotes outside and listening to "knock knock."
it's music for quiet times.

Bajofondo / electrotango

I just heard that Bajofondo is playing Central Park Summerstage tonight! I think it's free. Awesome. Actually i've never seen a central park summerstage show (based on a suspicion that it would involve too much waiting-in-lines) nor have i seen Bajofondo play live but anyway, I have a few of their cd's and I like their music. It's more or less electro-tango, i think it's really easy for anybody to enjoy.

Buenos Aires is s totally saturated in tango music and culture, it was weird moving here and knowing nothing about tango. At least half the time people hear my american accent they ask me "oh, did you come here to study tango?" At first all the tango everything (cds, stage shows, street performers, tango schools, tango shoes, tango apparel, tango murals, tango vacations, tango museums, etcetcetc!) struck me as touristy and schlocky but now I am totally filled with awe and respect for this intense tango culture and tradition that's all around Buenos Aires all the time. And I've realized how much I love accordions.

During the military dictatorship in the 1970's, tango dancing was outlawed (like most other types of public gathering). So tango culture became less popular and started to die out. It became an old-peoples' culture, just a throwback to old times... but now there's a whole new interest in tango, tons of young people are learning to dance and in addition to the milongas filled with old people dancing tango, there are now other milongas filled with young people dancing tango. I love going to a place where you can see everyone, young and old, twenty-five-year-old hipsters and ninety-year-old guys with suits and neatly greased hair, crowded together and gliding around the same dance floor. And although you can pay US$300 for a big tango dinner show, you can also go to the community center in any neighborhood and pay $2 to dance cheek-to-cheek with the local senior citizens, if you know how.
Anyway, i'm obviously neither expert nor purist when it comes to tango music; I totally love all of this electro-tango music: Bajofondo, and Gotan Project, Carlos Libedinsky, Tanghetto, ummm, i think there's more but i can't remember, i'll check my ipod and post more later...

(nothing but) flowers

i was listening to the talking heads last night and realized that this song goes on my list of post-apocalyptic stories.

Here we stand
Like an Adam and an Eve
Waterfalls
The Garden of Eden
Two fools in love
So beautiful and strong
The birds in the trees
Are smiling upon them
From the age of the dinosaurs
Cars have run on gasoline
Where, where have they gone?
Now, it's nothing but flowers

There was a factory
Now there are mountains and rivers
you got it, you got it

We caught a rattlesnake
Now we got something for dinner
we got it, we got it

There was a shopping mall
Now it's all covered with flowers
you've got it, you've got it

If this is paradise
I wish I had a lawnmower
you've got it, you've got it

Years ago
I was an angry young man
I'd pretend
That I was a billboard
Standing tall
By the side of the road
I fell in love
With a beautiful highway
This used to be real estate
Now it's only fields and trees
Where, where is the town
Now, it's nothing but flowers
The highways and cars
Were sacrificed for agriculture
I thought that we'd start over
But I guess I was wrong

Once there were parking lots
Now it's a peaceful oasis
you got it, you got it

This was a Pizza Hut
Now it's all covered with daisies
you got it, you got it

I miss the honky tonks,
Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens
you got it, you got it

And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention
you got it, you got it

I dream of cherry pies,
Candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies
you got it, you got it

We used to microwave
Now we just eat nuts and berries
you got it, you got it

This was a discount store,
Now it's turned into a cornfield
you got it, you got it

Don't leave me stranded here
I can't get used to this lifestyle

Some Kinda Love

This was my favorite favorite album for so many years. My sister Amy gave me the tape when I was in eighth grade. Today I heard this song and realized I still don't know what all the words are, so I looked them up. Let us now kiss the culprit.

Some kinds of love, Marguerita told Tom
Between thought and expression lies a lifetime
Situations arise because of the weather
And no kinds of love are better than others

Some kinds of love, Marguerita told Tom
Like a dirty French novel, combines the absurd with the vulgar
And some kinds of love, the possibilities are endless
And for me to miss one would seem to be groundless

I heard what you said, Marguerita heard Tom
And of course you're a bore, but in that you're not charmless
Cause a bore is a straight line, that finds a wealth in division
And some kinds of love are mistaken for vision

Put jelly on your shoulder, let us do what you fear most
That from which you recoil, but which still makes your eyes moist
Put jelly on your shoulder baby, lie down upon the carpet
Between thought and expression, let us now kiss the culprit

I don't know just what it's all about
Put on your red pajamas and find out
Mmmm ... ohhhh la-dee-ta-ta-ta

Phoenix

went to see Phoenix on Sunday at La Trastienda Club in San Telmo. they were really fun. They sounded a bit more like The Strokes than I'd expected. The only thing that was disappointing was the seating arrangement. The club has little tables with chairs, and we'd (foolisly) paid a bit more to reserve ourselves a chair at a table right up front! Last time we went to a show at this club, everyone stayed in their seats, while the "standing" audience lurked around the back and sides, and it was nice to have a chair. But this show was a lot more energetic, and everyone just rushed to the front to jump around and stuff. It was funner that way, it wasn't the kind of show that people should stay in their seats for. But I felt a little silly for getting the seats. We didn't see Sofia Coppola in the audience but we thought she could've been there somewhere, because the lead singer Thomas Mars is her baby daddy, and also because her daddy Francis Ford Coppola is living in Buenos Aires these days.

MILTON!

Last night we went to see Milton Nascimento play at teatro Gran Rex and we had really nice tickets close to the stage and it was amazing and awesome. He just opened my mind up and blew it away. His music has been the soundtrack to so many moments in my history. It was amazing to see him singing the favorite songs I know by heart, but there were lots of songs that were new to me. He taught us a harmony part to one song and all the voices in the audience sang one part while Milton sang a different melody, over us, and it was the most amazing moment to hear so many voices together and to think "right now I am singing a song with Milton Nascimento."

dancing girls (updated!)

I was thinking about a job I used to have, where I sat in a carpeted cubicle, in a fluorescent lit-hallway, in a tall office building in midtown. My job was mind-numbing stuff like counting things and opening envelopes. The best way to get through the day was drinking lots of free powdered sugary beverages from the kitchenette and watching videos on launch.com in one corner of my screen, while typing on my spreadsheet or counting things or opening envelopes or whatever. My favorite then was Kylie Minogue, can't get you out of my mind. In honor of Kylie, and that summer, I have tried to collect here some of my all-time favorite dancing girls music videos. Sometimes a screen full of dancing girls can really cheer up a boring day.

Walk It Out ladies


Alizée!


Nancy Sinatra, These Boots Are Made for Walking
http://scopitones.blogs.com/scopitonescom/files/boots.mov


France Gall, Les Sucettes.
oh my god, this is weird.


another Scopitone: Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, Bittersweet Samba

Ladytron, Seventeen


Kylie Minogue, Can't Get You Out of My Head


MIA, galang


Beyonce, Crazy in Love


Daft Bodies
as soon as I watched this I had to come back to my blog and replace the Francoise Hardy video (which didn't actually include any dancing) with this dancealicious creation.

Caetano Veloso

for my birthday mike got us tickets to go see caetano veloso! he put on a great show. lots of enthusiasm all around, and beautiful music. what a voice.
i took a video but it came out pretty awful. i like my camera okay (Sony DSC-T9) but I do not like the video it takes because it always goes horribly out of focus.

Juana Molina, Nuevos Aires

Juana Molina, Nuevos Aires
Originally uploaded by elizajanecurtis

we went to see Juana Molina as part of the Nuevos Aires folk festival at La Trastienda in San Telmo. It was a crazy journey trying to get there (see taxistas post below) but it was fun and the mystery opening guest was awesome!! Later research revealed that (I think) he was TheFormado, an amazing one-man-band with laptops, accordion, trumpet, keyboard, and maybe some other stuff too.


Juana Molina also did a beautiful set but the video i took came out super awful. At the end she played "Salvese Quien Pueden" and it was very nice.

listening

Some albums me and the pups have been singing along to.
Old favorites and new ones.


sally shapiro. disco romance
cansei de ser sexy. CSS


death from above 1979. you're a woman, i'm a machine
the presets. beams


lansing dreiden. the dividing island


john cale. paris 1919
peter, bjorn and john. writer's block


the innocence mission. birds of my neighborhood
charlotte gainsbourg. 5:55


the rapture. pieces of the people we love
tapes n tapes. the loon


band of horses. everything all the time
my morning jacket. it still moves


gillian welch. revival
chico buarque. construção


sui generis. confesiones de invierno
seu jorge. carolina