Song of the Year! of the Ox!

Here's a blast from the fairly distant past in honor of the brand-new Year of the Ox: Plague of Daisies performing the song "I'd Rather be a Cow" in a living-room tape from Spring 1994.

Plague of Daisies was, on this particular song:

• michael5000 on guitar and vocals
• DrSchnell on the bitchin' cello
• Mike Horan on the mandolin and backing (albeit far superior) vocals
• the late great Gary Shea on bass

WARNING: Tinny!

WARNING: May take forever to load!

Weekend Notebook

Isn't Football a Fun Game?

Would any of you college football fans care to know what it feels like to go, in a week, from national title contention to -- I am not making this up -- having your fourth-string quarterback brought off the field with an injury?

No, I thought you wouldn't.

Eh, it could be worse. I could be one of the quarterbacks.

How's Your Health?

Six days later, I seem to be out of the woods.

Mrs.5000, however, is a different story. She spent much of the morning engrossed in the book shown at right. This afternoon, she took to bed and has been sleeping fitfully with a low grade fever.

Since she is not a football fan, I suspect that her illness is of occult origin. If any of you old X-Files fans have any advice for me, I'm listening.

Turning to Sports...

Before Mrs.5000's mind was captured by the mysteries of The Great Pyramid, we played a game of Scrabble last night in which we combined for 820 points. 423 - 397. That's got to be some kind of record, for us anyway. In fact, I know it is, since I, um, keep meticulous records. But you could have already guessed this about me.

Online Music....

Pandora added a classical library this week to their free online music service! And it is surprisingly broad and quirky. I'm in music-streaming heaven. With the station-mixing feature, I can get consecutive selections from my stations that specialize in the various rock musics, plus electronica, old country, soul, hiphop, folk.... and now string quartets, concerti, symphonies, etc. It's like the radio station I've always dreamed of. Bliss!


Comments on Comments

Comments from The Favorite Bands, 2007

OK, I've made it my business to bring home the music that a few of you suggested, such as additional Andrew Bird, Art Brut, Voxtrot, etc. The verdict -- too early to tell. It takes me a long time to assimilate stuff, these days. I'm sure I'll love it by the time everyone else has forgotten about it.

I'm afraid I still like Mike Doughty.



Comments from The Monday Quiz III

There has been a bit of a dust-up on the topic of just how darn easy The Monday Quiz III was. Anyone who doesn't know about the Sistine Chapel, it was argued, is either still in elementary school or has lived in a cave all their life.

Don't get me wrong, the Sistine Chapel was an intentional near-gimme. But, since I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have recognized the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel -- or any other painting outside of The Last Supper and The Mona Lisa -- at my graduation from high school, I thought this might be overstated.

Now me, I had a fairly minimal basic education. Niece #3, on the other hand, recently graduated from one of the best elementary schools in Washington state, and she won something like four of six of their "Most Annoyingly Bright Student" awards. Sent the Sistine Chapel image from Monday, she was asked to identify it, its location, and painter. Her response was: I don’t know the answers to any of your questions, but my mom does. She is being most infernal, and isn’t telling me them.

I have not yet been able to find a cave hermit so that I can complete this investigation.


Comments from Do The Collapse


To address fingerstothebone's forcefully stated concerns, here's Yoyo the LOLcat!!!




Comments on The Great Movies: All About Eve

I got some love for my recent Guided By Voices content, and that inspired me to upload the scruffy little cover of "Fair Touching" that I made to test out my new concertina last spring. Listen with love in your heart, as it is but a junky home recording. Also, I do not know how to play concertina.

Here it is. It made me sad I haven't been doing any home recording recently. Too much time blogging, I suppose.

Mrs. 5000 at 23rd and Sandy

Listen, I have admitted that I might not be entirely impartial on the subject of Mrs. 5000's artwork. Nevertheless, I think you really ought to get to the 23Sandy Gallery this month to see her camera obscura. And I don't care if you DO live in Chicago. This is art, damn it!

The camera obscura is appearing in a book arts exhibit called "Sense and Sensuality," a national juried show which I believe will also feature work by recent L&TM5K contributer fingerstothebone.

Here are the dates:

June 27 - August 4, Thurs - Sat 12 to 6 p.m.

Artist Reception: Friday, July 13, 6 - 9 p.m.

NE Sandy and 23rd in beautiful Inner East, Portland

And here's an example of the kind of thing you might see if you gazed into the camera obscura.

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I tweaked with the Palmcorder Yajna recording from last night. It sounds much better to me now, but I don't know if will sound any different to you. You can check if you want.

Concertina Yajna

So I bought a concertina a few weeks ago. It was a rash and controversial act that I can't explain or justify. A concertina is incredibly loud, and I don't really know how to, you know, play it. Per se.

This lack of natural ability and talent is conspicuously on parade on a demo recording I finished tonight of the Mountain Goats song "Palmcorder Yajna," a great track that frankly deserves better than this kind of treatment. (I've posted it as "Concertina Yajna" on SoundClick to throw off the intellectual property enthusiasts.)

A note to the uninitiated: Home recordings don't sound all slick like you might be used to. And I know my voice sucks, OK?