Dawn
Sun Up
I have only seen freezing fog or mist once before in Halifax on Christmas 1989 or 1990. Crystals of snowy frost build up on every living surface. Hope the dog was brought in.
Freezing Fog
Dawn
Month: February 2005
Dawn
Paul Weller: Studio 150
The brother must read the old blog once in a while as, after posting about The Jam back in December, I received a copy of that band’s lead singer Paul Weller‘s latest CD, Studio 150 for my Christmas pressy. A covers album, more Style Council cool than the anger of The Jam, it’s dandy dandy dandy. Weller covers “The Bottle” with a backing of 1974 Jethro Tull art-rock flute with some of the left over waa-waa guitar from Shaft that are floating around the universe: [wma, 3.0 MB]. His voice is perfect for this style and sounds about two decades of two packs a day from his pissed teen sound of “Eton Rifles” or “A Town Called Malice”. Recall thinking every time a new album by the Jam came out how his voice got closer and closer to singing. He’s pretty much there now.
Thinking about the voice of someone covering a Gordie Lightfoot tune is a bit strange for anyone exposed to CBC’s weekness for him but Weller’s approach to “Early Morning Rain” [wma, 3.6 MB] is right, not so much reverential as honest. I’ve always thought that Lightfoot’s 1960s Canadian camp keener voice made some of the good liquor and fast women ideas a little fake. Weller’s got crap on his boots and a hangover when singing this one to me. Nice touch on the pretty authentic Ontario folkie fiddle for a Londoner’s set recorded in Amsterdam. In fact, the instrumentation is some of the best stuff about this album. The organ in “Early Morning Rain” at the end, the clarinet in “One Way Road”, the flute and waa-waa in “The Bottle”, the disco strings in “Thinking of You”. The Modfather, he cleans up well in a three piece suit and is the only human who could get away with wearing a canary yellow Faire Isle sweater in the presence of Pete Townsend.
Hans really needs to buy this one.
If this were Ontario, it would be a matter of confusing a $12.8 billion dollar one-year deficit with a $780,000,000 one. Wouldn’t the polls reflect some unhappiness with that? Apparently not.
Buy This Book
Walter the Farting Dog
This book, by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray, is the apex of a certain type of subversive kid’s book that busts up our four and six year old. At the heart of its subversion, it makes Mom or Dad say “fart” about twenty-seven times before the light in the kids’ room goes off. It is perhaps the sort of book that creates two classes of people and, in a better world, would be a generally accepted gift for all occassions and a coffee table regular.