How to Waste a Weekend

[miko2]

1. Geeking Out to Lord of the Rings

I actually started doing this much earlier in the week. Around Tuesday or Wednesday, can't remember the exact date because I'm too lazy to do any research even if it only means going back and reading this week's LJ entries... um, where was I? Oh yeah... sometime around Wednesday I think it was, I came home from work, sat down in front of the television, and watched my 4-hour version of The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time.

This is much easier to do these days because Tom works days, so he's not sitting in front of the television watching something else. Anyway I kind of wanted to do this when it felt right, when I was alone, when I was in the right mood.

So... much fun. The next night I came home and watched a bunch of the specials. The night after that was Friday night and I finished... hmmm no wait... well anyway I watched more specials (unlike Tom when he did this a few months ago, I skipped some of the art gallery stuff, but watched everything else). So by Saturday I finished watching everything there was to see that wasn't an art gallery.

At this point I was ready to watch the 2nd movie (which I haven't watched since I bought it months ago), but I decided to watch them both in a row... but I decided against watching the 4 hour version again. So I popped in The Fellowship of the Ring pan-n-scan theater release version and watched that.

Mostly what this did for me was help me appreciate how much the extra footage in the 4 hour version adds to the story. I missed having it there... the theater version is shorter but not as rewarding, now that I've seen the longer version.

But the theater version is still very long, so I went to bed after that. Today when I got up, I verified that there was nothing on television I really wanted to see, then popped in the Two Towers.

Coooooool. ^_^

And then I popped in the 2nd disc that comes with it and watched all of the making of specials and trailers and short films that it has. Not quite like all the stuff you get with the big box set... which comes out in just a month, I think... but still very cool.

So I've basically watched maybe 20 hours worth of Lord of the Ring stuff in the last few days. Very cool! It's a wonderful way to waste time. ^_^

2. Geeking Out to Music

I'm pretty good at this too. My week started around Tuesday (which was payday) when I went online and discovered that an old new wave group from Boston that I like called Robin Lane and the Chartbusters had stuff on cd that I could order. Their original first albumn had finally been released on cd, and they had a new cd out (they've gotten back together after 20 years... happens to a lot of bands I guess). Also Robin Lane had a solo cd that was still available for only $2.98 used off Amazon. So I ordered all three used. But mostly I'm interested in their old albumn from 1980 or whenever it was that it came out. They did a 2nd albumn that has some songs I really like on it, (I own all three of their albumns on vinyl still), but I doubt that will ever be released on cd.

Tuesday I also stopped at Silver Platters in Tukwila (and Half Price Books) and bought some cds. I bought some cheap cds at Half Price for my "grab bag" Christmas cd thing like I did last year... just anything I find for $1 or $2 that I think is good or else would be funny to put in the box. But at Silver Platters I bought a Me First & the Gimme Gimmes cd, and a Chris Thomas King cd that sort of traces the history of the blues and sort of deals with the legendary bluesman Tommy Johnson.

This launched me into a new bout of Geeking Out on Blues Music. I did online research on Tommy Johnson and other blues musicians, and Wednesday I dropped by Silver Platters at Northgate with the idea of grabbing some cds by these people. But they didn't have anything I wanted, so I got the Spinal Tap soundtrack that I'd tried to find Tuesday and a cd of blues artist Lonnie Johnson.

One thing I should point out here... I probably spent more money on music this week than some of my friends spend in two or three years. But most of these blues cds I'm picking up are not full-priced cds... often you can get good cds of old music like this for anywhere from $8 to $12.

That said, I don't really want to figure out how much money I spent on music this week. ^_^ More than $100, certainly. But probably not as much as $200. I think. I hope.

So anyway, I took my Robert Johnson cd and my Howlin' Wolf cd to work and geeked out to blues music some more. Howlin' Wolf is one of my favorite electric blues artists. He doesn't sound like I expect electric blues to sound... you know, my idea of electric blues has always been a smoky join in Chicago with one of those old heavy plodding blues bass lines punctuated by lead guitar... but basically, not something that excited me. But Howlin' Wolf is energetic and exciting... he was a heavy influence on all of the big blues-rock acts of the 60's, Cream, Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin, etc etc., and you can hear it very clearly in his recording from the 50's. The cd I have is a 24 tracks that comprise his first two full-length albumns, which mostly were made of of his 1950's singles. Great stuff.

And then I went home and got on the internet again and ordered more stuff... Tommy Johnson, Bukka White, and Blind Blake.

I'm sure that would have been enough for one paycheck, but I ordered a couple more cds later in the week... two that have been on my wish list for a long time (one of them is out of print). I was thinking about them and found that both were available used and decided to grab them while they were there. These were not blues cds but more in the bluegrass/rock vein... one by the Fendermen (who did the weird rockabilly cover of the Bill Munroe bluegrass classic "Muleskinner Blues") and one by the Blood Oranges, a country/bluegrass/alternative rock group that isn't around anymore.

Oh yeah... after that one live journal post about day of the month songs, I did research on the bluesman Ishman Bracey, who was a contemporarly and friend of Tommy Johnson, and I decided to get a complete works of his material. I couldn't do this at Amazon so I went to the Document records website and ordered it directly from them. Document Records is a British music label that deals with old blues music (and maybe other stuff too? I have no idea.) When they say "document" they mean it... songs are listed in the order they were recorded, with all the details about when and where and who was involved, to the best of anyone's knowledge. The covers are black and white with old photos of the blues musician in question... there is no attempt at fancy packaging or any attempt to clean up the recorded sound, as far as I can tell. What you get is the basic existing tracks as found.

So anyway... I ordered that too.

Friday night I got on the internet and did more research on more artists. Because I'd been listening to my Howlin' Wolf all week, I was in the mood to pick up something else by him, or perhaps something by another electric bluesman. I was interested in maybe Lightnin' Hopkins or John Lee Hooker... I'm still not really that well-versed in blues music but my overall impulse has been to look for country blues which is closer to folk music, and avoid electric blues which usually makes me think of those long slow plodding songs... but Howlin' Wolf is cool electric blues, so I wanted something else like that. I tend to associate Muddy Waters and B.B. King with the kind of electric blues I don't like... but I might like John Lee Hooker. The only cd of him that I have is his old country blues, non-electric stuff.

I also wanted more of Skip James... what I have is a cd of all his early recordings from around 1930 or so. They're scratchy like any blues recordings from that era, but very powerful. But Skip James did a lot of recording in the sixties, and I don't own any of that. I'd like to pick up some of that music, since he's probably my favorite blues artist.

But as I was searching stuff on the interent I came across Mississippi Fred McDowell. His is an interesting story... he was a blues musician like many others who played small gatherings and otherwise worked as a farmer. The difference is that he never recorded anything in the 20's or 30's and wasn't discovered by any of the library of congress field recordings in the 40's and 50's... until Alan Lomax found him in 1959. People who heard him were blown away... here was an exceptional blues musician, a contemporary of Son House and Charley Patton, that nobody who wasn't a neighbor of his had ever heard before.

He was also a very down-to-earth person. Blues had been a hobby and something he did for fun his whole life, but when he found himself touring the U.S. and Europe in the sixties, he remained the same person with the same approach to his music. Anyway, I listend to some of the clips on Amazon.com and knew I needed to hear more of this guy.

One thing about how I approach music like this. Artists like Lonnie Johnson and Robert Johnson are considered some of the most amazing blues musicians to ever walk the earth, and a lot of this rests on their mastery of the guitar. Lonnie plays very fast... so does Robert Johnson, and he maintains a melody and bass line at the same time (and also rhythm) and they can both be quite intricate. But I don't know, perhaps because I'm not a guitarist or a musician at all, it never strikes me as quite so cool or awe-inspiring as Skip James (with his eerie, spine-tingling falsetto) or Blind Willie Johnson with his scary gutteral growl. Of course, even Blind Willie Johnson is hailed as the greatest slide guitarist ever... and I don't really hear it. I like him for the amazing quality of his voice.

But the funny thing about Fred McDowell is that it's his guitar playing that grabs me. It probably helps that these are all clear, modern recordings. He's a pretty amazing blues slide guitarist, and he's doing the kind of things that Charley Patton and Robert Johnson and Blind Willie Johnson did, but you can hear it much more clearly. Either way, I really liked what I heard.

Sooooooo... Saturday I went out, with the idea of trying to track down Paul Simon's Graceland (used), anything by ABC that had How to be a Millionaire on it (used) and then maybe go get something by Fred McDowell, or possibly Skip James, or whatever.

I drove to Half Price Books in Edmonds. Here I bought some cheap used cds from the bargain bin for my Christmas thing. I also got a large book for $4.98 of "Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories". Sounded like fun. ^_^ This is, you know, the type of thing Gene would probably buy if he didn't already own it. I have no idea if he does of course... they had another copy but while I briefly wondered if it would make a good Christmas present for Gene, I left it there. You know, I never know what to get my friends sometimes.

Then I drove to Half Price Books in Lynnwood. It was a rainy gray afternoon... nice time to be driving around to used bookstores. Here I got more stupid cheap cds for my grab bag, and a Slayers manga. They had just about all of the Ranma 1/2 manga there, I noticed, and tons of Comics One manga like all the Half Price Bookstores have had for the last few months... but anything from that company that I would want, I already own.

I had a chance to get "The Legend of Himiko" boxed dvd set (3 dvds) for $35 but I passed.

Then I drove up to Half Price Books in Everett. Here I managed to avoid buying more cds... there were several pushy people who absolutely HAD to occupy the bargain section so I didn't get much time to look through there... but I did pick up two dvds, DNA^2 volumes 1 and 2. This is a series based on the manga by the guy whose name I can't remember who did Video Girl Ai and I's. I've always wanted to see it.

I considered dropping by Sky's place but I'm kind of adverse to dropping in on people unannounced (anyway, sounds like he and Jwy'l were at Kristin's). So I drove South on the freeway. It was dark and pouring rain... I hate driving in those conditions, it's so hard to see. I made it down to Silver Platters in Northgate, where after much debate I picked up two Fred McDowell cds (the two I'd really wanted) and then avoided getting anything else... well, almost. I grabbed a cd by Billie Holiday called "Blue Billie". Billie never really sang blues music, despite the title of her autobiography "Lady Sings the Blues", but she led a very rough and tragic life and often sang with real sorrow in her voice... so this cd is a collection of songs that reflect that. It includes "Gloomy Sunday" which is a hauntingly beautiful but depressing song about contemplating suicide (the guy who wrote is actually did commit suicide not too long after). I first heard it on my "The Great Depression: American Music in the 30's" cd (a companion to a PBS documentary). I was hoping to get something that had that song and some of her other well-known hits, especially "Strange Fruit", but in the end this was the only cd that had "Gloomy Sunday" on it and I was well aware that I'd already spent WAY too much money on music for this paycheck... maybe enough for the next two months, heh.

Anyway as it turns out, all of the song on this cd (which was only $11) are completely remixed from the masters, so the sound is exceptional... much better than on my PBS documentary cd. So I'm happy. ^_^ But I should buy some more Billie Holiday someday, at least somethin with "Strange Fruit" on it.

The two Fred McDowell cds I bought... one of them was the first thing recorded after the Alan Lomax recordings. Some blues fans drove down to Como, Mississippi and located Fred. This part keeps confusing me because he says on his other cd that despite being called "Mississippi Fred" his home is in Rossville, Tennessee. But apparently he settled in Como in 1940. Perhaps later he moved back to Rossville, or else he just always considered it his real home.

Anyway... for the price of paying his daily wages they talked him into taking a day of work off. He sat in his living room with his family and dogs and neighbors gathered around, and he played blues for hours while they recorded everything. This cd is culled from those recordings, although really the guys that recorded it had no intention of publishing it later... they just did it because they wanted to, and Fred was just playing because that's what he always did and what hey enjoyed. Brilliant stuff, and the occasionaly background noises from people and dogs only adds to the authentic feel and atmosphere. Some of the best acoustic blues I've heard.

The other cd was the last studio recording he did. He called it "I Do Not Play No Rock 'n' Roll" which was merely a statement of fact. This was in 1971, and he was one of the last true country blues artists around who still played the real deal. But for this cd he picked up an electric guitar and has a drummer and bass player accompany him... I guess this scandalized and disappointed many of his fans, but it really doesn't change what he's doing at all, just gives his music more power. He handled an electric guitar like he'd been doing it for years, but what came out was the same old country blues.

I just love his talks in between songs on this cd. They actually print the conversations in the sleeve because his thick accent is sometimes hard to follow. His explanation of what the blues is falls just short of being complete gibberish, and yet it makes perfect sense:

This is... this is here what I want you to unnerstand... I wan y'all to unnerstand. The congregation. Everybody don't know what the blues is. Now you take up when I was a boy... just like I first told y'all my home was in Rossville, Tennessee. Okay? Now what we call the blues now, at that time you know what they call them? A reel. That's what the blue come from. A reel. Now you don't know what a reel is, do you? Okay. Alright, it just like a... old people raised you when I was coming on. You go to church, you call yourself confessing religion. Okay. Well everybody had got confidence in you, you unnerstand, that you really done confess. Well you turn around, from the church song and start singing that. Well they didn't call it a blues then, they called it a reel, you unnerstand. Well the reel came from... the blues came from the reel. They changed it, just to say blues, you unnerstand. Just like, er... you mother and father raised you into it and you told yourself when I came on. They heard you singing something. N'huh! He ain't got nothin! I heard him singing a reel, yesterdiddy, see. Okay. But er... but a blue... and a reel is all the same.

And I'll tell you about the blues, how this... how they work. Okay. It's a many different ways that the blues work. Here you go. Okay. Just like you take me. er. Or that fellow yonder that's running that mike. You and him being together for a year, running together for a year, huh? You beginning to gain all confidence in him you unnerstand, see. You let him have any amount of money he asks as long as you got it. And when he gets something in his hand, to catch you down, he'll turn you down. Or else he'll get with another crowd and misuse you with somebody else you unnerstand, you see. Well the first thing you say, you get off yourself, see, not whilst you're there, you get off to yourself and get to studying, you say, I wouldn't have thought so-and-so would have did me like that, close as I thought me and him was, you unnerstand, see, huh? Well see that was your mind, man y'see. And if you can do this... if you can play this thing... well the more you play... the bluer you get, until you get to it.

You see I have got up out of bed and played the thing. And me and my wife have got into it. And I got up out of the bed. She was sleep. Went in other room and played. Played the blues. When I got satisfied I put it down, went on, went to bed and went to sleep. You see, it was off of my mind, it's a worrisome thing.

So that's the blues according to Fred McDowell.

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But enough geeking out on the blues... although that and Lord of the Rings is most of what I did this weekend.

I stopped at Chef at Wok and got Sezchuan Spicy Chicken and Pork Fried Rice. Then Tom and I watched DNA^2. I had to turn off the English voice actors... this anime is goofy enough without horrible US Manga voice acting. It was hard to swallow at first, the story is pretty stupid, but then it gets more interesting as the various love polygons get tangled up. But I'm not sure if I want to spend any more money on the series.

That's about it for my weekend so far.