This overlooked gem by Fiona Apple has been on my mind recently as I just learned how to play it on the piano and I love the feel of it (actually most of the album it's on, "Extraordinary Machine," has much of the same vibe). It sounds like a Danny Elfman score or something...
This is one of those rare songs I've heard a thousand times but will never tire of. The message, the melody...sublime.
Anyway, I came across this cool and creative video recently that covers the song nicely. Here are the details:
On December 7th, 2009 at 1:30 pm GMT Starbucks invited musicians from all over the world to sing together at the same time to raise awareness for AIDS in Africa. In that one breathtaking moment, musicians from 156 countries played "All You Need is Love" together. Watch now, as musicians from all around the world come together and share a song.
Sound artist Pogo created a techno song entirely from garden sounds and his mother's voice as a gift for Mother's Day. (Thanks to Gimundo for the tip). Enjoy.
For the first time, I have to make a personal appeal, but it's for a good cause.
Have you heard of Move Your Money? The movement was started by Huffington Post and is all about getting folks to...:
..move their money out of the Wall Street banks and into community banks and credit unions. Community banks are typically more conservative about how they manage their money, they’re more closely connected to the people and businesses who live near them, and they’re more inclined to make loans they know will get paid back. In other words, they have the values that more people would want banks to have.
Coincidentally, a friend and I both work in credit union organizations and play together in a band called The Disclosures. Recently a contest opened up that asked for people to submit a 2-minute video around moving your money - the only stipulation is you had to start your song with "Money in a bank. Money in a bank. Looking like a fool with your money in a bank."
Almost all the other entries are rap...but we came up with this. Enjoy!
Voting started this week and is open until Wed. March 17 - anyone with an email can vote. It's easy and only takes a second.
I've been thinking and listening to Pavement a lot recently - one of my favorite bands of the nineties. They broke up in 1999...but are actually and amazingly reuniting this year to play some select shows (one in Chicago even!).
Anyway, they have a wealth of songs that would fit in the Sunday Sublime songs category, but it feels right to have a song off their last album included here on the blog.
Man I love Neil Young. I've talked about him and his music here before, but I've had his music on my mind much more lately since I've started to play guitar again. I could post one of his songs once a week for months and it would take a while to run out of good stuff.
Anyway, today's Sunday Sublime song comes from his later stuff - a slow gem off his acoustic album "Silver & Gold." The first time I heard "Razor Love" I just couldn't believe it. It just stirred something inside of me.
Close your eyes and listen:
And just for fun, here is me and my friend Chad playing it:
I was tempted to post "Satellites" from the Doves for this Sublime Sunday song, but another tune from the same album jumped right out at me. I hadn't heard the album in awhile and it was refreshing. "Pounding" is faster, janglier and filled with awesomeness.
You might have seen this already, but just in case I am posting it because it's too awesome not to miss. I saw it a few weeks ago and it's already gone viral across the internet.
For this Sunday Sublime song, it would have been too easy to choose Mazzy Star's beautiful hit "Fade Into You." But out of all three of their albums, the tune "Blue Light" always had a particular ethereal quality to it, even more so than usual. I love singer Hope Sandoval's voice, so effortlessly sublime.
This kid got me so excited about music. His name is the apt Jonah Rocks & the kid can jam. Enjoy a video of him jammin' here (won't allow me to embed the video).
I love his facial expressions - you can tell he's really into it. Check out his other videos too afterwards right here & visit his website here.
* Thanks to Tim for making me aware of this cool kid.
After scanning a list of past Sunday's Sublime songs, I was surprised I hadn't yet posted a song by one of my favorite artists - Radiohead. And how do you pick? Their music catalog contains so many sublime songs I could almost post them all.
But then I remembered singing "No Surprises" to my oldest daughter when she was very little - she loved it. The melody does resemble a lullaby and the production is superb...almost otherworldly. I hope you enjoy it.
Let me say this first - I'm not a huge fan of Grizzly Bear or this song really. BUT this video is genius and it was created by a fan. The band already created their own video for the song...and it doesn't come close to this one. You can watch it with the sound off and still be blown away. Enjoy:
A very special Sunday Sublime song...in fact a sequel to a Sublime song from months ago. That's me trying to look cool six years ago.
So in 1998 in the Army, I recorded an instrumental song "Sunday Afternoon." It always kind of bothered me that I couldn't figure out any lyrics or melody to accompany it, but I enjoyed it anyway. So I just let it be.
Jump five years to 2003. Out of the Army (since early '99), in college full-time, working full-time, living in Chicago, and newly married with a newborn baby. I was months away from being officially out of the Army being still contractually obligated in the Individial Ready Reserve, which basically means if something really bad happens, they would've call me if they need bodies.
Then the Iraq war started. I was stressed out - my new life was really just beginning and started to imagine what it would be like if I got called "back to duty." I was playing guitar one day, playing old songs I wrote and when playing that old instrumental I started singing of separation. The lyrics came out like a faucet and I recorded this song very soon after that.
Thanks to my friend Brent again, here is an amazing video. Here are the details from the creator:
In the garden of my house there's a tree with lots of randomly grown twigs. It looks odd and nice at the same time. One day I asked myself if I could create a piece of music with it.
To tune the tree I picked a fundamental note and tuned the twigs by trimming them with a pencil sharpener. I used two Røde NT6 and a NTG-2 as microphones, combined with a customized stethoscope.
I recorded the tracks live on a Pro Tools LE system. I didn't use any synthesizer or sampler to create or modify the sounds. All the sounds come from playing the tree, by bowing the twigs, shaking the leaves, playing rhythms on the cortex and so on.
That's right - the wait is over. It's been twelve weeks since the first Sublime Goodness Mixtape and since then I've been posting another Sublime Sunday song every week, comprising this second installment.
And I do say, this is the most eclectic mixtape I think I've ever made (and I've made many!) - Michael Jackson, Smashing Pumpkins, the Chi-Lites, Vampire Weekend, m....I've also created some front and back cover art that is in the zip file like last time (and in case you are wondering, the pictures for both volumes of the mixtape are from my copy of the Illustrated Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman - one of my favorite books).
Here is the tracklist (with links to the original blog posts):
...then click the "Download Now" button at zShare and the download will begin after a bit. The mixtape zip file above includes all twelve songs in mp3 format (192kbps) and front/back cover in jpg format. Close your eyes and listen. :) Need some free "zip" software? Download 7-Zip here which is what I used.Your Windows program most likely can unzip this mixtape file with no problems - just double-click it and click "unzip!"
Disclaimer: I own all the CDs for which these songs came from - if you like any of the songs, please go buy the albums. I am offering them here for "sampling" only.
Michael Jackson is a huge part of my childhood (and others no doubt) - I remember waiting all night for his videos to come on MTV when I was little, I wore out my copy of Thriller, I had a MJ scrapbook, trading cards, and this classic poster of Michael in a yellow sweater vest on my wall. Later on, I was impressed with his willingness to push the envelope a little bit, releasing a lyrically edgy hit song like "Black or White."
Later in life, when I spent years in Europe I was amazed at how popular he still was over there - his fame never receded like it did in the U.S.. Now, for the last few years, MJ's been back in my life as my daughters have rediscovered Micheal's classic early work and relish it for themselves.
To honor Michael, I think it warrants posting one of the most famous moments in TV history - a night I'll never forget - his legendary May 1983 performance on the Motown 25th Anniversary Special of Billie Jean.
Oh, and he moonwalked too that night - I was in first grade and remember that the next day, every kid in school (probably every school...)was talking about it and trying to do it like he did.
His energy is amazing here - enjoy:
Here is more background for the performance:
Five months after the release of his phenomenally successful second album, Thriller, Michael Jackson performs the 'moonwalk' on the Motown 25th Anniversary Special to his hit song "Billie Jean" on this day in 1983. (He had introduced the move in front of a live audience earlier that year.)
Already well-known since the age of 11 as the star and lead singer of the Jackson 5, a family musical act made up of Michael and his brothers that was signed by Motown in 1969, Jackson released his first solo album, Off the Wall, in 1979 when he was 21 years old. The follow-up, 1982's Thriller, was packed with seven hit singles and went on to break all music-industry sales records as it made Jackson a worldwide superstar. Jackson's May 16, 1983 performance on the Motown 25th Anniversary Special boosted enthusiasm for the release and spawned the 'moonwalk,' a dance move--in which he appeared to be slowly moving forward as he actually moved backward--that is now synonymous with Jackson and his unprecedented critical and commercial success. (The move was actually a takeoff on the 'backslide,' which had been performed on Soul Train a couple of years earlier.) Later that year, he released a hotly anticipated 14-minute music video for the song "Thriller" on the year-old MTV music network, and was well on his way to revolutionizing not only pop music, but television as well. (from This Day in History)
For today's Sunday Sublime song, we have another titan of rock - Jimi Hendrix. But this isn't one of his loudest songs - far from it - it's his most sublime (although "May this be Love" or "Red House" comes close...) and beautiful.
This was the song that turned me on to Hendrix too when I was a teenager. At that point, I had only heard "Foxey Lady" and "Fire," two good songs but just blah classic rock to my grunge filled ears. Then I got a record player and put on the "Are you Experienced?" album that I must have inherited from my dad's collection. Today's song, "The Wind Cries Mary," came on and I was transfixed. The guitar, the groove, Jimi's voice, the stereo mix...it just blew me away and still does to this day. Enjoy.
Close your eyes and listen:
PS - I'll be in Boston the next few day for a conference so updates might be sparse. But stay tuned - next Sunday brings the second installment of the Sublime Goodness Mixtape. Are you excited? Me too! In the meantime, enjoy the first one here.
Oh and she has autism, which makes this performance even more amazing. Here's a little background:
When Gina Incandela of Kissimmee, Florida was two years old, she was diagnosed with a type of autism called PDD NOS. Her parents weren’t sure if she would ever learn to speak.
But after they enrolled her in a special needs class at the University of Central Florida, things began to change. As it turned out, music was the key to help the silent toddler find her voice—and as soon as she started singing, she never wanted to stop.
“We would recognize the melodies far before we recognized the words. Her pitch and melodies were so accurate,” her mother Michelle told the Orlando Sentinel.
Gina’s favorite singer was Leanne Rimes—and she especially loved Rimes’ rendition of The Star Spangled Banner. Soon, Gina had learned to sing the song so beautifully that her parents knew it was time to share their daughter’s gift with the world.
Last spring, when Michelle saw an ad for singers to audition to perform the national anthem at a Houston Astros game, she didn’t really believe that her little girl would be chosen for the momentous event. But Gina wowed the judges—and, at the game, her stunning performance brought many of the 40,000 cheering fans to tears. Her performance launched the child to instant fame, with performances at more sports events including the US Open and several Orlando Magic basketball games, as well as the Today Show.
“Many families that receive a similar diagnosis are struck with fear and react with denial,” Gina’s mother writes on her website. “They are overwhelmed with the feeling that their child will never achieve the same goals as other children. Well, Gina is an example that these children are capable of wonderful things. Gina has gracefully walked through every door that has been opened for her through early intervention. It is my hope that others will hear her story so that their children may follow through those doors to reach their own goals and fulfill their own dreams.” (from Gimundo)
This footage is fantastic. Prepare to be wowed:
By the way, it's worth reading some of the comments on this video's YouTube page here.
Yes, Michael Jackson for today's Sublime Sunday song. For the last 15 years or so, Michael Jackson has been surrounded by weirdness and scandal. But go back to the 70s and 80s and you will find some of the most amazing pop songs were done by MJ. It's hard to find people nowadays that don't like "Thriller" or "Off the Wall" ... like my two daughters. I had to get a new copy of "Thriller" because they wore out mine.
Which leads me to "Rock with You." It's a brilliant song (read a detailed reason why here) and survived the Disco years to still be relevant today. It's one of those songs that you can put on at home, the club, the car - wherever - and have everyone nod in agreement. Universal sublime goodness.
I've been waiting to post this Sunday Sublime song - my favorite song off my favorite album of one of my favorite bands. When the Pumpkins recorded this album they were going through a lot - a touring band member died of drug use, their drummer fired for drug use, and Billy's (the singer) mother died. Unfortunately, some of the best music comes out of tragedy. And "For Martha" is just that - a beautiful song written in tribute for Billy's mother, Martha Corgan.
As a sidenote, I was lucky enough to run into Billy in downtown Chicago one day passing him on the sidewalk on a quiet Sunday morning (I was on the way to work and he was seemingly on the way to the gym by his towel and outfit). I said hello and introduced myself - he was gracious and I told him that"For Martha" and the album Adore were vastly underrated and I've probably listened to them a million times in pure enjoyment. I'm glad I got to tell him that.
Close your eyes and listen:
...Your picture out of time Left aching in my mind Shadows kept alive
If you have to go dont say goodbye If you have to go dont you cry If you have to go I will get by I will follow you and see you on the other side...
I just realized that I haven't posted a Sunday Sublime song since February (!), so I am rectifying that today with a little ditty from 2005.
