cooltunes

Actually, the prep work is today. The pressure washing is done (forgot and left a bathroom window open, major mess), the windows all covered over. The workers have been singing, frequently in falsetto, and whistling. The boombox appeared, which is fine with me, my neighbor in back deserves a couple of days of noise favors returned.

The light inside is amazing, but kinda hard to concentrate on photos with all the outside activity. Tomorrow promises more of the same distraction, but at the end of the day, the house will look better than it has for two decades. Here I was thinking the prep would only take a couple of hours.

Back in its heyday, KSFO’s night guy was Bobby Dale. When he was depressed, which was often the case, he would put on some Mickey Newbury. Especially if it was raining, because Mickey had those rain songs. Even now, I can’t think of Bobby without remembering Mickey.

For a short time, I worked at the station, and while I met the other DJs, I never saw Bobby since he only came in when most of the staff had gone home.

Back then, I didn’t know Bobby’s DJ history, nor was I aware of Mickey’s prolific songwriting abilities. Kris Kristofferson said that he could never have written Bobbie McGee had it not been for Newbury’s influence.

You won’t find Mickey Newbury at iTunes, but he’s at Amazon.

Here is An American Trilogy, which Newbury didn’t write, but arranged. He put three diverse, classic, Southern-flavored songs together in a stunning whole. Elvis and Tom Jones both had hits with their versions, but it’s this one I like the most:

While messing around on last.fm, I learned of a horrifying European character called Crazy Frog. People in the US don’t seem to be too familiar with Crazy Frog, but apparently there is a song by Crazy Frog which people generally agree is one of the most irritating songs ever made by man. A search for ‘crazy frog’ on YouTube will get you a taste of what this sounds like.

From last.fm:

The success of this album along with the “Axel F” single has irritated and baffled many critics and musicians. This is mostly due to the Frog’s constant chart domination despite the hatred of so many, and the frustration of legitimate musicians selling well below him.

Anyway, through Crazy Frog I discovered many of the more negative tags on last.fm, such as “the worst thing ever to happen to music” (Crazy Frog is by far the top artist), “kill me now,” and “rapes my ears”. I made sure to tag my musical nemesis Kelly Clarkson with all these tags.

Coming back from Berkeley Friday night, the blues fan in the car wanted to listen to the radio. The foodies’ ears perked up as the singer went on about ‘red beans and rice, fried chicken and neckbones’.

Turned out to be Sista Monica and ‘Put It in the Crockpot’. iTunes has it.