Grace Under Pressure

1 September 2010 | 4 Comments

Here’s a beautiful woman and a beautiful man making some wicked good music together. Such grace Under Pressure (oooh, a music pun!)

Enjoy your day.

Apologies for the annoying popup annotations. To turn them off, mouse onto the little up-arrow at the bottom right of the player, and then click the triangular icon to turn off annotations.
 

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, music 

Let the music take you there

22 June 2010 | 9 Comments

From Flavorwire comes this cogent infographic.
 

 
Makes me think it’s time for some more jukebox around this joint. I’ll work on that. In the meantime, what else can we add to the list? I will ponder this as I drive to the gym.

Write-a-thon running total: 1,007 words.

Enjoy your day.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, music 

If you ever played Mousetrap as a kid…

5 March 2010 | 2 Comments

Well, you just have to see this.

The Rube Goldberg machine was built by the band and Synn Labs, and just goes to show what happens when you tell people to go have some fun.

Enjoy.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, music 

In league with the freeway

4 December 2009 | 1 Comment

For many years I lived a life of which long-distance driving was an essential component. I drove my little red 5-speed Toyota between Chicago, Florida, Atlanta, North Carolina, Michigan. Many solitary miles of road and music and cigarettes and highway food eaten from my lap. The varied environmental hygiene and interesting graffiti of interstate rest stops. Soldiering in second gear up the mountain and riding the brakes all the way down on the hairpin curves.

On the road, life is externally simple and internally limitless. There is nothing to do but drive, and as long as one is driving well, there is plenty of headspace to think, to feel, to dream and plan and wonder. I would dream of a big life with big love and big choices and spaces always opening up within me. I would dream of a life stuffed to the brim and beyond with everyday joys. I would relish the long hours of never slowing down that were my only chance to stop rushing through my days.

I have little desire to actually go back out on the road that way now; it’s a different world out there, I think. And I have so many of the things that I dreamed of during all those miles. But sometimes when I’m very busy and the days vanish into weeks, I miss that feeling of the long journey with the certain destination where all I have to do is drive, and the days become time out of time.

Big Log
by Robert Plant, Jezz Woodroffe and Robbie Blunt

My love is in league with the freeway
Its passion will ride as the cities fly by
And the taillights dissolve in the coming of night
And the questions in thousands take flight
My love is the miles and the waiting
The eyes that just stare, and the glance at the clock
And the secret that burns, and the pain that won’t stop
And its fuel is the years
Leading me on
Leading me down the road
Driving me on, driving me down the road
My love is exceeding the limit
Red-eyed and fevered with the hum of the miles
Distance and longing, my thoughts do collide
Should I rest for a while at the side?
Your love is cradled in knowing
Eyes in the mirror still expecting they’ll come
Sensing too well when the journey is done
There is no turning back, no.
There is no turning back on the run.
My love is in league with the freeway
Oh, the freeway, and the coming of nighttime
My love, my love is in league with the freeway.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, life, music 

Handsome is as handsome does

3 November 2009 | 7 Comments

I guess it’s no secret by now that I’m a huge U2 fan.

I say this in spite of how utterly crap the U2 business organization is. In this regard, loving U2 is like loving (fill in the sports-team-that-keeps-losing of your choice) — you keep hoping, and then you keep taking it on the chin. The U2 official fan club overcharges for membership and is always in utter organizational chaos. They can’t get a fan ticket pre-sale right to save their lives. The website is pretentious, hard to navigate, and the People In Charge have in the past been openly dismissive of fan concerns and contemptuous of anorak fans. And don’t get me started on what a Bad Idea I think a stadium tour and a zillion-dollar set are, or why an audience of 100,000 is not necessarily five times as wonderful as an audience of 20,000, or why saving the world and making compelling art are not always mutually inclusive.

But then I listen to the music that I love. I stand in the front row and sing my heart out with the band. And I see something like this, and am reminded why I love these guys: the human music and the human beings behind it. I wish human moments like this one were more possible in our Big Celebrity World.

And I wish more people treated Big Celebrity People like the T-Shirt Guy having the real conversation, as opposed to the Fluttering Woman. If I had to go out on a limb, I’d guess the Big Celebrity Person in this situation enjoyed the conversation more than the fluttering. I’m not a BCP, but I sure know what’s more interesting to me in my encounters with strangers. Bodies are great, don’t get me wrong: but sex starts in the brain, you know?

And I have to wonder what people want when they behave this way? Do they really want sex, or is that just the mechanism by which socially-conditioned/gendered women express admiration for accomplished men, or the desire to connect with someone whose work means something to them? I dunno…me, if I want to impress someone, I prefer to use my brain. Which I guess makes me a lot more of a sister-under-the-skin to T-Shirt Guy. In my younger days, I thought that I just didn’t know how to be a girl. It took a while to figure out that what I really always wanted to be was an adult.
 

Enjoy your day.

Hat tip to @U2‘s Fearless Leader Matt Mcgee for the link.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, music 

Jukebox

15 August 2009 | 1 Comment

Tonight I will be dancing.

It’s been a while. For various schedule reasons, I haven’t been able to dance since May. I’m looking forward to it enormously, and today’s jukebox is all about that.

The first song, by the fabulous Keb’ Mo’, pretty much says it all. The rest of the songs do it.

Enjoy.

Edited to add: I’m sorry to say that I don’t have enough server space for all my audio, so most jukebox playlists become inactive after a few months. This is one. Very sorry. But the music is worth seeking out, it’s great!

To use the E-Phonic MP3 Player you will need Adobe Flash Player 9 or better and a Javascript enabled browser.


 
She Just Wants to Dance
Keb’ Mo’

Well
When the music starts to playing
She slides out on the floor
Dancing without a partner
Swaying on the two and four

There’s a rhythm in her footstep
And a flower in her hair
A smile on her face
Cause she’s in a place
Where she don’t have a care

She ain’t looking for no lover
She ain’t looking for romance
She just wants to dance

Well she’s moving kinda lazy
And it’s obvious to me
This little girl ain’t crazy
She’s as wild as she is free

She can feel it in her fingers
And it moves on down her spine
And when it hits her hips
She parts her lips
And you know she’s feeling fine

She ain’t looking for no lover
She ain’t looking for romance
She just wants to dance

Get out the way and let the girl dance…

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, jukebox, music 

City music

8 August 2009 | 1 Comment

I haven’t done a Jukebox post recently because right now I’m not listening to my own collection — I’m listening to the music from cities around the world.

CitySounds is a brilliant cool (simple, elegant) music site featuring music uploaded by people in selected cities to SoundCloud, or new music produced by people in those cities using the SoundCloud API.
 

citysounds
 
Much of the world seems to be into electronica/house, but I just heard a lovely acoustic guitar/vocal track from Paris and, from Amsterdam, Isaac Hayes (happy!) — so I certainly haven’t heard it all. And I want to.

Come join me at CitySounds. I might be in Tokyo or London or LA…

Enjoy your day.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, music 

Talking about joy

23 July 2009 | 3 Comments

Updated with direct links and info.

U2 is home in Dublin for three shows, and you know I’d love to be there in person. But I’m not — so many thanks to Pat McGrath of RTÉ (Raidió Teilifís Éireann — Radio Television of Ireland) for letting me be there in voice and in spirit, by including me in a segment about U2 on the Morning Ireland radio show aired Friday morning, July 24. The focus of the segment is joy in U2′s music, and Pat found me through this essay on the joy in U2′s live performance of the song “Elevation” at Slane Castle in 2001.

The segment includes excerpts of my interview as well as interview/music clips from U2. It’s a little over 5 minutes. Give it a listen here, or at the Morning Ireland archives.

If you’re at a U2 show this weekend — or wherever you are — I wish you joy. Ná bog ar an gcaoi a bhfuil eagla ort; bog faoi anáil an ghrá, bog faoi anáil an lúcháir. (Do not move the way fear makes you move; move the way love makes you move, move the way joy makes you move.)

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, interviews, music 

Jukebox

21 July 2009 | Comments Off

I’ve been asking why. These are some of the answers. And that’s all the analysis I’m doing today: this is music, it can’t always be etherized and spread out upon the table. Draw your own conclusions if you like, or just enjoy.
 

To use the E-Phonic MP3 Player you will need Adobe Flash Player 9 or better and a Javascript enabled browser.


 
“Hypnotized”
Because there’s no explaining what your imagination can make you see and feel.

“The Unforgettable Fire”
I am only asking, but I think you know.
Come on, take me away.
Come on, take me away.
Come on, take me home.

“Spaced”
And I’m never, never, never, never ever going back.
I’m off the track.

“Shoot High, Aim Low”
Shall we lose ourselves for a reason?
Shall we burn ourselves for the answer?
Have we found the place we’re looking for?
Someone shouted “Open the door!”
Look out!

“Shine It All Around”
These are the times of my life, bright and strong and golden.
This is the way that I choose when the deal goes down.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, jukebox, music 

Jukebox

3 July 2009 | 5 Comments

I can only hear Noir in my head, but they are very loud there. The way I work — my way into story and character — is through mirror neurons, and so my people live large within me. To me they are utterly real.

But, sadly, not real in the “let me play you this really cool song by Noir” way: so the best I can offer is a selection of what goes through their ears when they plug into other people’s music. Think of it as a random sampler of the iPods of Noir (ouch, that sounds like something from a bad fantasy novel, but never mind).

This is a longer playlist, eight songs — two each from Duncan, Johnny, Angel and Con. You do not need to have read their story to appreciate (or not) their taste in music: but perhaps if you have enjoyed traveling with them, you’ll find some fun here.

To use the E-Phonic MP3 Player you will need Adobe Flash Player 9 or better and a Javascript enabled browser.

Duncan’s always a little dramatic: from him, you get Gotye and Nine Inch Nails, and he’s planning to send an audience right over the edge with them any day now — there won’t be a dry eye or a dry seat in the house. Johnny is the rock poet and the Holy shit, look what you can do with music guy: he likes Bowie and would walk through fire for Patti Smith. Angel is… well, he’s Angel: he’d always rather have more, and he thinks resistance is silly, hence his fondness for Cafe Tacuba and “Super Freak.” And Con loves “Bad Medicine” (although for a while he was sorry because the song made a lot of trouble for everyone), and since he saw U2 and Green Day play the Super Bowl he has dreamed, dreamed of Noir having that moment someday. Because they would kill.

Enjoy.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, jukebox, music 

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