HOLY WOWS and happy Monday. The Rhymesayers have a full album preview of Aes Rock’s new album up!
Folks have already started checking and interpreting lyrics over at RapGenius. Definitely check those out – and the behind the scenes videos of AR talking about the songs. It’s just him and a dog in a field. Cutest thing on earth.
I found this huge paste-up hidden away in the overpass between platforms at the DeKalb stop.
I follow Renee’s blog and she’s helped me out by summarizing all of the newsroom.
I assume this sampling makes sense to those of you that watch and that it is perfectly accurate:
MAGGIE: Jim and I are too busy not falling in love with each other, and also vetting the prom date lady.SLOAN: But I have some actual important stuff to tell you guys! Economic stuff. About currency manipulation. If my grasp of Mandarin is accurate, that is.MAGGIE: Ugh, here we go.[MACKENZIE RUNS IN, BREAKS THE HEEL OF HER SHOE, ACCIDENTALLY STEPS ON NEAL’S PRONE BODY]
I have to share this new band I’m into. First watch the best new video I’ve seen in dog years.
I KNOW. Shows you that Memento could have been a hell of a lot shorter.
But that’s not my favorite song. Here’s the one that Chris and Sheep Robby have both picked up on:
Here’s a quieter one, but still great.
So this is just a post to let you know that I am now subscribed to the alt-j channel on youtube and http://soundcloud.com/alt-j/. And I’ll be seeing them live next time they are in town. I have it on excellent authority that they know how to play instruments in front of a crowd. Go ye forth and listen and share!
Chris Restrepo has uploaded photos, so you should be checking them out. He’s a pediatric ER doctor, wakeboarder and snowboarder. And he takes amazing photos. Last time I mentioned Chris. I particularly love when he turns buildings into geometric patterns.
![[Electric chairs.] Digital ID: 814385. New York Public Library](http://www.morelightmorelight.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/mercy_seat.jpg "[Electric chairs.] Digital ID: 814385. New York Public Library")
The Mercy Seat is a changeable beast. The song is very simple. A man is waiting to die in the electric chair, he is not afraid, he says he is innocent. He is executed and goes to his reward. The song is complex. The man may or may not be innocent, he is unreliable and crazy, he is not unafraid. He calls on the mercy seat that God sits on and is not heard.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds play this song at every concert, changing the performance and the lyrics. Sometimes it curls up sweet and sad and slow.
Sometimes it roars like a lion and shakes the earth.
I like it loud like that. I feel the madness and bombast – it blows me away every time. One day I went on a mercy seat binge, listened to tons of versions and covers on youtube.
Johnny Cash made it his own. When Johnny Cash sang your song, it became his song.
The covers flowed and changed like the versions the Bad Seeds played live. Some were intimate and pushed against the base of your gut.
This Dresden Dolls cover is like a hammer banging onto a hammer banging onto a skull. Those DRUMS are so huge!
Shouldn’t ALL drum solos just be part of the song?
I found out there is a gospel song of the same name by an artist named Vicki Yohe. I love this version of it – the passion, the build, the weird guy clapping in the background! It really starts kicking at 3:10…
It has that same structure – the slow build and the giant pounding crescendo. They both deal with the Mercy Seat and I’d love to hear a mashup that builds them off of each other, trading despair and hope. Hell, let’s see what happens when we play them right over each other. IF I knew anyone who made mashups I’d totally log time helping or pay them to create this. Then I would listen to it until my ears fell off.
| YouTube Doubler |
Or maybe not. Not every bright idea works.
Far McKon points out two more kinds of free besides “Free as in speech” or “Free as in beer”: Dirt or Kittens. Both are often free and that kind of freedom has a special peculiarity. Far explains.