{"id":1785,"date":"2008-11-06T23:58:21","date_gmt":"2008-11-07T03:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/?p=1785"},"modified":"2008-12-07T23:43:29","modified_gmt":"2008-12-08T03:43:29","slug":"five-for-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/06\/five-for-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"Five For Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><\/center><\/p>\n<p>And now, an unthemed mix of music for a Friday.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll start off with a selection from the typically great new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oysterband.co.uk\/\">Oysterband<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/cdbaby.com\/cd\/oysterband3\">album<\/a>. This probably isn&#8217;t &#8220;the single&#8221; for most people, but since I&#8217;m getting quite comfortable in my self-selected role of aging and cranky progressive type, it appeals. I saw this live earlier this year<footnote>&#8230;on a cannonball run from Boston to Halifax via St. Catherines<\/footnote>, in what was certainly the best show I&#8217;ve seen this year. It&#8217;s hardly the same, but you can see <a href=\"http:\/\/uk.youtube.com\/watch?v=gk9OUQ_IE-0\">a live performance<\/a> of the song online.The Oysters are part of the essential soundtrack of my life ever since I first heard a cover of The Oxford Girl in the Abbey Pub in Chicago years ago&#8211;without their music in it, the story would have been different.<\/p>\n<p>And then we move on to a selection from <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fully_Completely\">my favourite album <\/a>from our own <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehip.com\/\">Tragically Hip<\/a>. This, as I have probably mentioned before, is one of those songs that make me drive too fast. All the Canadians will know this one, of course, since we&#8217;re all issued new &#8216;Hip albums, so this is one for the Yanks. (Although my countrymen and women might get a flashback, and a &#8220;Hey remember when Gord had hair&#8221;, from checking out <a href=\"http:\/\/uk.youtube.com\/watch?v=SOk8VDh4Hnw\">the video<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>Then, since those first two might not get me any cred with the downtown hipsters, I&#8217;ll pick a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.batforlashes.com\/\">Bat For Lashes<\/a> track. This one I like primarily because of how full the sound is on the chorus&#8211;I&#8217;m often a fan of one voice and one guitar, but I can get behind lush production when it&#8217;s done well, as it is here. And hey, melodramatic and catchy, is a good combination too. Ironically I was lead to this artist<a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/29\/if-you-like-the-arty-breathy-female-singers\/\"> by the same person<\/a> who pointed the way to the Oysterband.<\/p>\n<p>And then it&#8217;s the tune from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0066026\/\">MASH<\/a> that became the theme song of the TV version, as performed by Waterloo jazz man Derek Hines. I really wish I had more recordings of Derek&#8217;s jazz stuff&#8211;the one 5-track EP I have isn&#8217;t really enough. Also, not jazz, but I particularly wish I had a recording of he and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dannymichel.com\/\">Danny<\/a> doing <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Suspicious_Minds\">Suspicious Minds<\/a>. (Derek&#8217;s mostly a man of mystery on the Internets these days, but he was spotted making an appearance as a hooded backup singer in <a href=\"http:\/\/uk.youtube.com\/watch?v=Z47pMhUys_0\">a recent Paul Macleod video<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p>And we&#8217;ll close off with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.laurieanderson.com\/\">Laurie Anderson<\/a>, giving a nod to Old Bill. I could listen to Laurie&#8217;s voice all day, and whether her tracks succeed or fail, they&#8217;re certainly never boring. It both amazes, and kind of freaks me out, when I think that she&#8217;s in her 60s. I kind of wish she had done more than <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Ugly_One_with_the_Jewels\">one storytelling recording<\/a> too, since I love listening to that disc. (Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/uk.youtube.com\/watch?v=4FeyGTmw0I0\">the original version, with the visuals<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">And now, an unthemed mix of music for a Friday. We&#8217;ll start off with a selection from the typically great new Oysterband album. This probably isn&#8217;t &#8220;the single&#8221; for most people, but since I&#8217;m getting quite comfortable in my self-selected role of aging and cranky progressive type, it appeals. I saw this live earlier this year&#8230;on a cannonball run from&hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/06\/five-for-friday\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[84,144,459],"class_list":["post-1785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-embed","tag-mp3","tag-music","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-sN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1785"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1938,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785\/revisions\/1938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}