Pressed in love's hot fevered iron

MacArthur Maze is melting in the dark
All the sweet black asphalt flowing down
Someone left their tanker truck in flames
I don't think the maze can take it
And it won't take long to break it
And we'll never have that overpass again

Free transit!

Little hands Clapping

Went to see the Orange Peels last night at the Stork Club, the second of two nights that I saw Seattle's Central Services. I also saw them on an early Friday show with the Bye Bye Blackbirds at the Makeout Room.

Anyhow, I didn't even know the Orange Peels were still actively playing. Last night's show was supposed to be an Allen Clapp solo show, but he recruited 4/5ths of the OPs So Far lineup (drummer John Moremen and guitarist Bob Vickers along with Allen's wife/bassist Jill Pries) for their first show in awhile. Still, they sounded as tight as if they'd been playing together all this time, playing mostly tunes from their first two albums.

I also finally picked up Allen's Something Strange Happens CD, which has all of his lo-fi solo singles and compilation tracks all in one place. He started recording 4-track masterpieces in the late-80s, long before it was fashionable, and kept it up until a few years ago when cheap digital recording and Pro Tools made 4-track cassette recording extinct. Many of the songs (including the title track of the compilation) were later given the full-band treatment by the Orange Peels, but the initial four-track versions sound more definitive. In the recording notes, he says he didn't like to use drum machines , so he would sample drums from various classic bands (the snare from a Stones album, kick-drum from a Doors album) and "play" the percussion like another instrument. This gives these songs a homemade charm , and makes the beats sound more "real" than something generated by a drum machine. I don't know why it took me so long to pick this release up. It's put me in a good mood all day!

And speaking of good moods, hats off to the Warriors. Even if you hate basketball, you've got to love this! Watching the Mavs ower Mark Cuban pout and whine on TV as his overrated team throws the game away is its own reward.

When I was 40 in the year 2007

A belated happy birthday to Anton Barbeau, who hit the big four-oh earlier this week. I somehow dropped off Anton's mailing list when I changed email addresses, so I've been missing his periodic wackiness in my inbox. And he seems to spend most of his time in the UK these days, so I haven't been able to see Anton live since the show he did with the Loud Family on New Year's Eve eve.

I wanted to to mark the occasion by picking a few of my favorite Anton songs to share, but it's difficult to pick just a few. Because I'll be honest with you, I love his music. I do. As Bob Slydell would say "I am an Anton Barbeau fan". And many of you who are reading this may also be Anton fans, maybe because of me.

To whittle it down from his tons of worthwhile choices,here are five of my favorite Anton songs with numbers in their titles. Nothing says "happy birthday" better than buying a CD, so pick up one of his discs you don't already own. All the discs can be purchased here. That Anton photo is stealing their bandwidth so it's the least we can all do.

Anton Barbeau

1. When I Was 46 In The Year 13
   (from In The Village of the Apple Sun, 2006)
2. Pop Song 99
   (with the Loud Family, from What if It Works?, 2006)
3. 6 Hours Later
   (from 17th Century Fuzzbox Blues, 2000)
4. 3rd Eye
   (from A Splendid Tray, 1999)
5. Allyson 23
   (from Waterbugs & Beetles, 1995)

Town to town, up and down the dial

One of my favorite shows I've been wanting to see on DVD is WKRP in Cincinnati. It's been stuck in musical licensing limbo, because the rights for the songs used in the show (most of which were integral to the plots) would have been prohibitively expensive to obtain. That's also why the show hasn't been in syndication for awhile.

The first season was released on DVD this week, but with its original songs replaced by generic soundalike songs. So the legendary Thanksgiving episode doesn't have the scene with Johnny playing Pink Floyd's "Dogs", Jennifer's doorbell doesn't play "Fly Me To The Moon", etc. etc.

On one hand, it's nice to be able to watch this classic show (it hasn't even been in syndication for awhile, thanks to music licensing), but many of the songs were an important part of the show, and having the show without the music is like having the pictures without the sound. Apparently it's a combination of Fox wanting to keep the costs affordable, and music publishers asking too much to re-license the original songs.

Hopefully this set will sell well enough that the studio will spring for the music licenses on later seasons. That "Tiny Dancer" episode just doesn't make much sense without the song "Tiny Dancer"! At least most of the dialog is still intact: "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!"

In a golden state of mind

After Sunday night's victory over the Mavericks, I'm solidly on the Golden State Warrior bandwagon for the remainder of their playoff run. I used to follow NBA basketball all the time during the early 90s, but it fell off my radar after the Bay Area got an NHL hockey team, and Jordan's first retirement turned NBA basketball boring. And the local team started sucking big time. This is the Warriors first playoff appearance since 1994, and they haven't even been close to respectable for most of these years. But this year's team are classic underdog favorites. They probably won't get past Dallas (they lost tonight), but they've brought back some of their RunTMC era excitement. It all went downhill for the Warriors after they traded Mitch Richmond for Billy Owens in 1992.

And check out the length of tonight's A's - Mariners game 1:47 I'm a big fan of short baseball games, I think sub two-hour games are like no-hitters. Jerod Washburn and Joe Blanton kept getting guys out, but the M's got a couple of solo home runs and beat the A's 2-0. The baseball game ended before the basketball game that started one hour earlier. One hour and forty seven minutes is the quickest game I've ever seen, in person or on television.

Clouds from both sides now

The new double-CD release by Future Clouds and Radar (Robert Harrison's post-Cotton Mather combo) was just added to emusic.

With 27 songs, this album is probably better to buy the old-fashioned way than via-download, but it's worth checking out in any format.

Cotton Mather's Kontiki is one of my favorite releases of the last decade, and their other two discs are also on my high-rotation list, so I've been looking forward to some new songs from Robert Harrison.
It takes some chutzpah (or stones) for a new band to put out a 27 song double disc as their debut, but nearly all the songs on the FC&R album are keepers. It's a bit more all over the map that Cotton Mather's straight Beatlesque pop, but it's more like Robert's vision expanded to double-length. And Game Theory's Lolita Nation had 27 tracks too!

The other two former Cotton Mather members (Dana Myzer and Whit Williams) have formed a band called Stockton with Ron Flynt of 20/20 fame. They have one song ("Dreamworld") on their myspace page and a new full-length due in "late 2006", which is myspacespeak for "sometime before Guns & Roses Chinese Democracy comes out".

How Barry got his groove back

I headed to Big Phone Company park yesterday to watch Zito and the Giants against the Diamondbacks. It was a crummy, overcast day with drizzling rain throughout, but a great day. Barry Z. held the D-backs to four hits and no runs over seven and a third, Barry B. hit is 739th career homerun, and the Giants won 1-0. And Armando Benitez even saved the one-run lead in the 9th!

Bonds hit the homerun to straightaway center, and I was in the edge of the right field bleachers about five feet away from where it landed. Say what you will about Barry, but he hits the most awesome home runs. This one was a high flyball that just kept going. Even though Hank Aaron and Bud Selig said they aren't going to be present when BB breaks the HR record, it's probably still going to happen all the same. Hammerin' Hank better get that telegram ready..

And Zito was in his groove. Curveball, fastball, changeup, he was working. Lots of people were quick to hate him after his first two shaky starts, but he hasn't given up any runs in his last two starts against the Rockies and Diamondbacks. I'm still not sure he's worth $136M, but he's fun to watch when he's dealing.