It keeps us all together. For one thing, we’ve learned that Randy, Paul and Elvis are just like you and me: they have shitty cellphones. It was pretty bizarre to see these three, who are often very particular about the high tech level of their recordings, willing to toss items out that are either in that uncomfortable vertical format, or recorded on what seems like an open-box Panasonic camcorder bought from Best Buy ten years ago. You see better quality fan bootlegs of their concerts on YouTube!
Over at Farcebook…er, Facebook…many have done one-on-one concert broadcasts. Last night it was a 90 minute intimate concert from Allison Moorer. She averaged about 500 listeners throughout the show.
Her song choices were based on fans submitting requests. A few lucky people who wrote in were randomly gifted with prizes…Allison giving away autographed copies of her book “Blood,” her album on orange vinyl, and some other fun things.
One song she didn’t perform was “When You Wake Up Feeling Bad.” Not enough people asked? Or was it too much of a downer to include? This was the song that introduced me to her work. She performed it on David Letterman's show. It’s pretty rare when any artist on the Illfolks blog actually gets to be on David Letterman’s show, but she did. The song is on "Crows," which reached #11 on Billboard’s “US Folk Albums” chart. It was released on the Rykodisc label in 2010. I'm sure it was Dave's love of unusual singer-songwriters (he adored Zevon) that led to this appearance, rather than a push from Moorer's indie label.
Too many people these days WAKE UP FEELING BAD...blinking their eyes to realize the reality of another weird day of social distancing, and not making enough money, and wondering who the next Covid-19 casualty will be and if it's a fatality or a recovery (nice to know TOM RUSH has recovered).
I've been uncharacteristically shy about leaving a comment on your blog, because you have a high moral stance on blogs "sharing" music that I'd be hypocritical to agree with. But anyway - I enjoy your writing very much. Even when - as here - I have no interest in who you're writing about (not a criticism of the artist).
ReplyDeleteWe can't, unfortunately, change minds, but we can entertain them, and you're good at it.
Thanks, I appreciate it. I agree, it's a conflict, "sharing" music, whether it's one song, or an album, or a whole discography. As Lenny Bruce used to say, "If they give, I'll grab." I think part of it is intent. Some bloggers are just egomaniacs who want to pretend they're the editor of Rolling Stone, or a disc jockey or whatever, but "album cover and link" doesn't make it. Don't post every day with that stuff and call yourself a music lover, Blogfather, or whatever. You're just hurting the artists and being part of the problem. Dial it back, and explain why you love this artist so much you want everyone to have the experience, too.
ReplyDelete