Murder Ballads

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013

Outlaw Blues

Paul Williams

Rest In Peace

Paul Williams was the founder of Crawdaddy, the first rock magazine that treated the music as music and not a teenage fad. He was a gifted writer who provided a platform for many others, and his influence is felt by anyone who regards rock'n'roll as a medium that can be both fun and thought provoking. Williams died last night surrounded by his family, including his wife, the gifted singer and songwriter Cindy Lee Berryhill.

Text by Mark Deming (via Facebook)

Quote Of The Week

"Reminds me of that fella back home who fell off a ten-story building. As he was falling, people on each floor kept hearing him say, "So far, so good." Heh, so far, so good."

Meat Crack

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013

Born Against

“We leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Impurity, cruelty, abuse, error, excrement, semen — there's no other way to be here. Nothing to do with disobedience. Nothing to do with grace or salvation or redemption. It’s in everyone. Indwelling. Inherent. Defining. The stain that is there before its mark."

From The Human Stain, 2000

Quote Of The Week

"How many slams in an old screen door? Depends how loud you shut it. How many slices in a bread? Depends how thin you cut it. How much good inside a day? Depends how good you live 'em. How much love inside a friend? Depends how much you give 'em."

The Parting Glass

"The most important thing to remember about drunks is that drunks are far more intelligent than non-drunks. They spend a lot of time talking in pubs, unlike workaholics who concentrate on their careers and ambitions, who never develop their higher spiritual values, who never explore the insides of their head like a drunk does."

Streams Of Whiskey

Fare thee well to an Upper West Side institution

(Family owned and operated for 70 years)

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013

Dance To Keep From Crying

"Even in the German Middle Ages, under the same power of Dionysus, constantly growing hordes thronged from place to place, singing and dancing; in these St. John’s and St. Vitus’s dances we recognize the Bacchic chorus of the Greeks once again, with its precursors in Asia Minor, right back to Babylon and the orgiastic Sacaea. There are people who, from a lack of experience or out of apathy, turn mockingly or pityingly away from such phenomena as from a “sickness of the people,” with a sense of their own health. These poor people naturally do not have any sense of how deathly and ghost-like this very “health” of theirs sounds, when the glowing life of the Dionysian throng roars past them."

From The Birth Of Tragedy, 1872

On Your Radio

"Truly eclectic programming, unlike other stations,

which claim to be eclectic." -Matt Groening

Dig: WFMU Marathon Information

Quote Of The Week

“You tasted it. Isn't that enough? Of what do you ever get more than a taste? That's all we're given in life. A taste. There is no more.”

Weekend Morning Rituals

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013

The New Breed: The Above

Another band that's actually been around for a bit, The Above have been plying their brand of '60s-style r&b and freakbeat for more than a few years now — going through a myriad of line-up changes in the process — and as we mentioned in our last New Breed profile, that still qualifies them as being new in our world! If the mention of bands like The Animals, Yardbirds, early Who, and Kinks make you perk up, then these Brooklyn boys are right up yer alley. The Above feature inspired songwriting (with more than a few nods to brothers Davies), impeccable harmonies, raucous rave-ups, and stellar musicianship on their self-titled debut full-length and two boss 45 releases; and are a burst of tightly-wound, kaleidoscopic energy in the live setting... A long-time local A.I.T.A. favorite!

Not My Brooklyn

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013

Quote Of The Week

"I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it."

A Gallery Of Cool, Take Fifteen

 

Dig: Gallery Of Cool, Take Fourteen