Tag: music
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Hamilton and what makes a healthy republic
The Show Ready for a hot take? Hamilton: An American Musical was really good. I assumed I wouldn’t see it for years, as tickets are prohibitively expensive in Chicago. But it was a surprise anniversary gift from my wife (musical theater tickets are the traditional Year 3 gift, right?) along with a special ticket she…
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I’m with ‘Stupid With Love’
I have listened to the Original Broadway Cast Recording of the Mean Girls musical (on Hoopla—free with your library card) and have determined, without having seen the show, that the best song is “Stupid With Love”:
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Songs over notes: in praise of The Okee Dokee Brothers
Had the pleasure of seeing The Okee Dokee Brothers in concert at Lincoln Hall. My little niece is a superfan of the folk duo, which is how I got turned onto them. And since they are a kid-centric act, I got to experience the glories of an 11 a.m. concert start time. I’d go to…
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Music we leave behind
There are two works of art I associate with an ex. One is the music of Mayer Hawthorne, specifically A Strange Arrangement, which had come out a few months before our brief relationship and was a primary jam for me that winter. The other is the Disney animated film The Princess and the Frog, which…
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Music of the Moment – International Women’s Day edition
An ongoing series on music I’ve encountered recently. Today, in honor of International Women’s Day, here’s an all-female list of music I’ve been really enjoying. “Ain’t That Fine” by I’m With Her, See You AroundThe soulful powers of Aoife O’Donovan, Sara Watkins, and Sarah Jarosz combined have become I’m With Her (which I’ve learned pre-dated Hillary’s presidential…
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Media of the moment
An ongoing series on books, movies & more I’ve encountered recently: Nurtured By Love by Shinichi Suzuki. Great little book on how to cultivate talent, specifically in children and music but also for anyone in anything. On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor. Enjoyed the adventure of this winding, informative book on the nature of trails…
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School of Rock
“We’re not goofing off. We’re creating musical fusion.” The video of a guy drumming to the “Just give up” speech from School of Rock inspired me to rewatch that 2003 Richard Linklater film for the first time in a while. It’s a meaningful movie for me, coming out when I was in high school and…
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Drumming to Dewey Finn in ‘School of Rock’
File this under “things I’d never think of but now make perfect sense”: drumming synced to Dewey Finn’s “Just give up” speech in School of Rock. Incredible. He has a bunch more too, like Willy Wonka and Fawlty Towers. School of Rock was a formative movie for me. It came out when I was in…
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Sgt. Better: ‘Lonely Hearts Club Band’ remastered
By no means am I an audiophile. Play an MP3, ACC, and WAV file of the same song back to back and I most likely couldn’t tell the difference. (Correction: I definitely couldn’t tell the difference, having failed this quiz.) But when I listened to the newly remastered 50th anniversary edition of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely…
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Pinery Boys: Songs and Songcatching in the Lumberjack Era
Got Pinery Boys: Songs and Songcatching in the Lumberjack Era as an unexpected Christmas gift from my dad. Given our shared appreciation for and history in the Northwoods of Wisconsin (though not in lumberjacking or songcatching unfortunately), this was a delightful read. It’s partly a reprint of Franz Rickaby’s 1926 collection Ballads and Songs of…
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Mark Twain on the ‘glory-beaming banjo’
Courtesy of the Steve Martin-narrated documentary Give Me The Banjo about “America’s Instrument”, here’s Mark Twain on the banjo: The piano may do for love-sick girls who lace themselves to skeletons, and lunch on chalk, pickles and slate pencils. But give me the banjo. … When you want genuine music—music that will come right home to…
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Hear Ye! Listening to ‘The New Analog’
“Noise has value.” So goes the thesis statement of The New Analog: Listening and Reconnecting in a Digital World, a wonderful new book by musician Damon Krukowski. He reckons with how digital media has changed how we consume music and what we’ve come to expect from it. New technologies have begat new ways of listening, but…
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Little Women
I was a good amount into a post celebrating the 1994 film Little Women when I discovered I was basically writing Alissa Wilkinson’s appreciation of the film at Vox from last year. It’s one of many movies I watched a lot with my sisters as a kid, in rotation with other female-focused ’90s films like Ever After, Never…
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Favorite Christmas song lyrics, ranked
I’m terrible at remembering lyrics. Even for favorite songs I’ve heard dozens of times. It’s an annoying deficiency when I try to sing along as so often I end up having to mumble certain lines. But now, my yearly Christmas music binge in progress, I’ve started paying attention to the lyrics that have peaked my…
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In praise of wedding reception air drumming
I didn’t realize I had a reputation. At a wedding recently, the bride and groom told me one of the things they were looking forward to the most was my air drumming. They had seen it in action at a previous wedding and had enjoyed it so much that they decided they would make time…
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My Mount Rushmore of Singers
At this moment, anyway: Sam Cooke, Frank Sinatra, Julie Andrews, Whitney Houston With a runner-up trophy for Marty Robbins.