swimming freestyle

Some Mercury Prize Nominees

The Mercury Prize is Britain's equivalent to our Grammy Award.  Nominees for Album of the Year have been announced and the awards ceremony is scheduled for September.  Nominees are:

Adele - 19
British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
Burial - Untrue
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Estelle - Shine
Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
Neon Neon - Stainless Style
Portico Quartet - Knee-Deep in the North Sea
Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement

Here's Burial "Arcangel"

And Elbow "Grounds for Divorce"

Artie Traum

Artie Traum, a guitarist, songwriter and producer who helped carry the spirit of the 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene to Woodstock, N.Y., died on Sunday. He was 65 and lived in Bearsville, N.Y., near Woodstock.

In a long and varied career, Mr. Traum played folk music and smooth jazz; recorded 10 albums of his own and four with his brother; produced albums; composed film scores; created guitar-instruction books and videos; teamed with his brother for a radio program; and made a documentary film about the Catskill water system.

In Woodstock during the 1970s and ’80s, Mr. Traum was a member and producer for the Woodstock Mountains Revue, a gathering of upstate folk musicians and singer-songwriters that also included John Sebastian; it made five albums for Rounder Records, with guests including Paul Butterfield, Eric Andersen and Maria Muldaur.  (Link)

"Achin' To Be"

In an article about a local DJ, she told a story about a previous job and a new station manager who demanded she say crude slogans on air.  Instead, she put the phones on hold and played whatever she wanted and, ultimately, quit and walked out.  She ended her set with the Replacements "Achin' To Be".

"Flowers of Romance"

From an article in the Guardian UK today, "Flowers of Romance" by Public Image Ltd. was chosen by author Garry Mulholland ("This is Uncool: the 500 Greatest Singles since Punk and Disco")  as "the strangest chart record of the last 25 years, maybe ever".  (Link)

Enjoy it's weirdness:

Bobby Durham

Bobby Durham, a drummer whose precise, understated style made him much sought after as a sideman by jazz greats like Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald, died Monday in Genoa, Italy. He was 71 and had homes near Genoa and Basel, Switzerland.

Mr. Durham was probably best known for his trio work, from 1966 to 1971, with Peterson at the piano and Ray Brown playing bass. He also drew significant notice from 1973 to 1980 as an accompanist to Fitzgerald. (Link)

Airborne Toxic Event

The Airborne Toxic Event, "Gasoline" Acoustic version

Thanks James

The Air Piano

Quite lovely.  From Engadget:

(h/t Daily Dish)

Ronnie Matthews

From the NY Times:

Ronnie Mathews, a jazz pianist whose recorded output as a leader was sparse but whose résumé as a sideman with stars of jazz was substantial, died on Saturday in Brooklyn. He was 72 and lived in the Prospect Heights neighborhood.

Mr. Matthews spent most of his career out of the spotlight. But he was highly valued by many noted fellow musicians for his harmonic acuity, his imagination as an improviser and his sensitivity as an accompanist.

Two of Mr. Mathews’s longest-lasting associations were with the saxophonist Johnny Griffin, from 1978 to 1982, and the drummer T. S. Monk — son of the pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, one of Mr. Mathews’s acknowledged influences — for most of the 1990s.

The Verve at Glastonbury

By most accounts, the Verve were one of the highlights of the big Glastonbury festival in Britain last weekend.  From Glastonbury:

Sonny Okusuns

Sonny Okosuns, a Nigerian singer and musician who achieved international stature by aiming his music — a catchy, rock-inflected cocktail of funk, reggae, Afrobeat and more — at human-rights abuses, died on May 24 in Washington. He was 61.

His boyhood inspirations were Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard and the Beatles, but at a time when Africans were still fighting for their freedom, he took the position that songs needed a message. His anthem protesting apartheid in South Africa, “Fire in Soweto” (1977), was probably his best-known song, and others strongly promoted African unity and black pride. (Link)