I know this because he sure asks a lot of questions. (Yeah, I know it’s a distortion of the punchline. Don’t care.) And not just of me, but other poor suckers. Here are my answers.
What is the best concert or festival you’ve been to in your lifetime?
Answered here about a year ago, and nothing has changed in the intervening period. Not even seeing the Turtles. What I didn’t note was that the T Heads were on the tour that brought forth the Stop Making Sense movie, which I have never seen, although I have the soundtrack.
What music does your daughter enjoy that you are tickled pink that she likes?
She likes anything that’s danceable. I got a kick out of her dancing to London Calling. But she has definite dislikes, though I’m not remembering specifically, except that it was a song that came from the Gordon-sponsored Mixed CD collection; she thought it was noise, and I probably agreed with her.
I’m formulating my Top Ten Music, what are some ones that might have slipped my eagle-eye gaze?
This is a tough question. I mean, I know that Gordon turned you on to stuff that I figured you might already have hit upon, but apparently had not. With that caveat:
Miles Davis – Kind of Blue. It is on that ALL-Time list for a reason. Get it. In fact, why don’t you find the ALL-Time list or one of those thousands of Rolling Stone Best Of lists and tell us what you have, so your musical gurus can endlessly taunt you about what you’re missing?
Dave Brubeck. Don’t have a specific album in mind. There’s a Greatest Hits which I don’t have, and The Essential DB, which I’ve given as gifts, but you can’t go wrong with Time Out, which, last I checked, cost $7.99 on Amazon. All sorts of funky meters, not just 5/4.
Elvis Costello – Spike. No, I say again: EC is NOT just a singles artist. The nature of my fondness for this album is based on some of the same reasons I like The Beatles’ Revolver, which is that it’s musically all over the place. From the Amazon review: “you could call Spike the beginning of Elvis Costello’s super-eclectic period. The 1989 disc…offered everything from the bed rock New Orleans sounds of Allen Toussaint and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band to clanging rockabilly, Paul McCartney collaborations (including the sparkling pop hit “Veronica”), and a jazz-ballad standard in the making (“Baby Plays Around” ).”
Paul McCartney – Tug of War. I almost picked Flowers in the Dirt, which was recorded around the same time as Costello’s Spike (Elvis sings on a couple tunes, and reportedly gave Macca the push to actually allow the “My Brave Face” bass line to sound like Beatle Paul.) But I opted for the earlier disc. Paul’s solo/Wings output was always uneven, but this one is pretty solid. It has a fun duet with Stevie Wonder – and I DON’T mean Ebony and Ivory – plus a duet with Carl Perkins.
And speaking of Stevie Wonder – you might as well get his whole late 1972 to 1980 output (Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness’ First Finale, Songs in the Key of Life, Hotter than July), EXCEPT Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants.
Finally, I’m a big fan of the Johnny Cash American albums. While the third (Solitary Man) and fourth (The Man Comes Around) albums have great songs, and the first one (American Recordings) is a wonderful solo effort, I’m thinking that the second one, Unchained, might be a good choice if you don’t have it. It’s more “commercial” – don’t mean that pejoratively – in that he’s backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I thought it’d be a big crossover hit, but it did more poorly than 1, 3 or 4. Actually, what you REALLY need is the fifth disc from the JRC box set, a greatest hits set from the four, but I haven’t seen it for sale separately.
If you asked me next month, it might be a whole ‘nother list.
You have any music that your wife won’t let you play when she’s around?
It’s not that she won’t LET me play, it that I choose not to. I tend towards playing the stuff I think she’ll like. When she’s not around, I’m more likely to play Hendrix, Cream, the Who, Zeppelin, Green Day, or the like. I also tend to play whatever I’m listening to LOUDLY, a lot more so than she can stand. If she comes back from shopping, she says, “Don’t you think that’s loud?” Well, yeah, I do.
The other thing I tend to play out of her hearing are some of the mixed CDs I’ve gotten. There seems to be a song or three on almost all of them I KNOW she wouldn’t like.