I hadn’t heard anything from Pixies in quite a long while. Not particularly out of choice, just that I hadn’t specifically hunted down anything from them to listen to for maybe a few weeks.
And then this cover fell onto my timeline this morning. The guy’s name is Dan Dubuque, the instrument is a Weissenborn Slide Guitar, and the track is Where Is My Mind? by… well… Pixies.
Still, enjoyable though this is, is it really fit for a blog post? I decided to go and collect the kids from school while I considered my options (which were basically ‘yes’ or ‘no’). I was actually erring on the side of no, but then, just as we pulled into the driveway, the radio began playing Here Comes Your Man by Pixies.
Clearly a sign.
And so that’s why you’ve got a Weissenborn Slide Guitarist from Montana on your screen right now. His covers of Pumped Up Kicksand Heart Shaped Box are quite fun as well and look less like they’re filmed in a building site with nice views.
And sure, the Weissenborn Slide Guitar might not be your favourite instrument – hell, it might not even be your favourite guitar – but there’s still something about watching someone do a great job of something they are passionate about. How else would you know about how cool the hammered dulcimer is, if not for a little experimentation in your life?
Having enjoyed The Universal Want from Doves since it came out last week, I’m now already really looking forward to Future Islands new album As Long As You Are, due out on the ninth of next month.
Just look at the passion in this performance. Incredible.
And suddenly there are four contenders for the top three spots in the 6000 miles… Album of the Year. To be fair, I’d love it if there were a few more too. Considering the disaster that 2020 has been, the music has been pretty good.
Well, it’s not like the musicians had anything else to do…
Yesterday evening, my son asked me how many blog posts I had written on here. I had a quick look at my back end (careful now) and was able to give him an exact figure.
It’s 5236.
[audience gasps]
[see?]
Of those 5236 posts, 5230 have been published and are available for your reading “pleasure”.
Two more are sitting in drafts: one for legal reasons and one because it’s a test for a new app/plugin which I might try sometime in the future.
And then there are three posts which I have marked as private because I changed my viewpoint(s) on the contentious issues therein. Yes, I could simply delete them, but sometimes it’s worth (privately) revisiting and reviewing how you felt about something in 2009 and how you’ve matured and educated yourself in the intervening period.
Beagle-eyed readers will have done some rudimentary calculations and worked out that we’re still one short.
This can like to be that post.
I wrote it on April 16th – 21 days into our lockdown here in SA. But I never published it. If you go back to look at what I did publish on Day 21, you’ll see this:
I have no idea why this rather ordinary piece of writing and this rather ordinary photo managed to usurp my original planned effort. But it did.
As described above, there are a few good reasons for why the posts that you can’t see are where they are.
This one… not so much.
And so, for no other reason than to tidy up my drafts folder, here’s what I wrote about in my post for Day 21 of the lockdown. Just look at the first couple of lines.
Nothing has changed, has it?
Anyway, please enjoy it.
But watch out if you’re a fan of bagpipes. They don’t come out of this well.
______________________
Everyone’s fighting about hydroxychloroquine, face masks, Trump and lockdown.
Online is not a pleasant place to be. Except here, of course.
Or is it?
Because I’m about to share some really good music that’s arguably been ruined by the worst instrument in the world.
But has it actually been ruined?
The jury’s still out, because the song is really, really good and the worst instrument in the world has at least been through a bit of a production process and isn’t (quite) the usual horrific squawking sound like a seagull being sexually violated that bagpipes (yeah, I said it!) usually are.
As you can see, this is Conor Oberst back in his old guise as Bright Eyes, and this is just a beautiful story of a guy giving in – against his better judgement – to his ex-lover. It’s not clear if the ex-lover brings the surprise bagpipes, but that would make his (already likely flawed) judgement call even worse.
If the bagpipes bit was done on a synth, I’d be much, much happier. Completely at peace with continually listening to this and adding it to my Spotify playlists. Because otherwise, it’s lovely.
As it is, I’m having to limit the number of repeats in order not to drive myself up the flippin’ wall each time the Middle 8 comes around.
I don’t generally do much of Sunday morning. You may say that I am wasting the best bit of the day, but “wasting” is a very subjective term, and if I have the chance to grab a nice, warm, cosy lie-in in winter – well, I’m not going to object. It is after all, “the day of rest”.
So it would have to be something very special to wake me up at 4 o’clock on a Sunday morning, and yet I actually do find myself tempted by this…
If you are reading this and thinking that I’m hinting at a suitable birthday present, thank you, but please don’t. I’m really undecided on whether this is a thing I want to do – I mean, it is something that I want to do, but whether I’ll feel that way at 3:55am that day… mmm… I’m less sure.
And then there’s the rest of the family. I mean, you spend all that money ($15 = R39,000,000) (ish) and you get up at 3:55am and then you listen to a concert on headphones so as not to wake the kids and the (probably bewildered) beagle?
More of bands I like doing more of the things I like, please.
NME agree:
Musically, they haven’t meddled with the formula they’ve been nurturing for a decade. The songs are built around Gerrit Welmers’ rippling synths and William Cashion’s propulsive basslines. And Herring’s still determined to plough all of his rawest emotions into the lyrics.
Indeed.
And more of the bands I don’t like as much, changing tack and doing things that I do like.
That would make the world a better place.
Set in and around a suitably post-apocalyptic Baltimore, the video for For Sure actually left me a bit cold, but as mentioned above, I’m loving the music.
Apparently, BTV, they were playing several new songs, so this looks good for a new album some time soon – it’s been three years.
