Every Song Is Good
Just came off a float trip down the Colorado. One of 1000 ways to get away from it all, I know, but this weekend, floating topped the chart. Searing heat, cold water, good friends and reasonably cool beer, all served up on a glassy ribbon woven betwixt and between black rocks and red canyon walls.
As if that weren't plenty, we also had music. Uncle Dub procured a booming box replete with radio transmitter for plugging in iPods and a separate volume control just for the bass. Deep, as they say. A lot of time and effort went into assembling playlists for these iPods, and it showed. Considering the absolute slow stillness of the languid float, we would've had to work pretty hard to find a song that didn't work.
And speaking of music on the river, earlier in the week, before the float, I was in New Orleans for a music distribution convention. It was my first time at this particular distributor's con, and my first time in NOLA in about 11 or 12 years. I was there for only a couple of days and pretty much saw only the French Quarter. It looked more or less like I remembered it, though much quieter. Not quite Andromeda Strain quiet, but noticably hushed for sure.
Walking down Bourbon Street at midday on a Tuesday and seeing so few people was sort of eerie. Jesse, the owner of the internet cafe I frequented a couple of times, told me that business is 35% of what it was pre-Katrina--and that's on the rare "good" day. According to Jesse, 80% of the housing in New Orleans is still unlivable. There are no decent hospitals. Best-case scenario, NOLA is back on its feet in 10 years. But really, he says, it's going to take more like 25-40.
Those are sober thoughts for a place called the Big Easy, but not everything there is lost. The people are the same. A little weariness seasoned with a valid sense of abandonment, to be sure, but the locals are still friendly, hospitable, welcoming. You can still grab a go-cup on your way out into the night.
Meanwhile, back at the record convention, despite the most dismal summer in record biz history, spirits were high. Hanging out with these record reps, retailers, rackjobbers and label freaks, there was perhaps a sense that we're survivors too (or, at least, so far). A storm is wreaking havoc on the music industry. The landscape is already irrevocably altered and the water's still rising.
But, implacable survivors of the record wars are we (or perhaps Queens and Kings of Denial). We managed to have a fantastic dinner and then head over to Le Chat Noir for some music showcases (and open bar). There, I saw a genre-bending torch singer, an Ani-meets-Smashing Pumpkins singer-songwriter, and though I'm not really the singer-songwriter type (at all), a song called "People Look Around" slayed me, but that may have just been a location thing. And then, there was the smooth jazz group that had me through the opening "Grazing in the Grass" but then that muted trumpet sound meshed with the keys and I that it was smooth jazz. Back to the open bar for me.
But it does go to show you, whether you're mindlessly floating down the Colorado on a raft or hanging on a corner a few blocks from the mighty Missisip', pondering a city--every song sounds good on the river.
Here are two that sounded particularly good.
Andre Afram Asmar :: "Duniagariba" (from Racetothebottom)
Saeed Al Kaabi :: "Mabd'a We Nihaya" (from Music from the Arabian Gulf)
As if that weren't plenty, we also had music. Uncle Dub procured a booming box replete with radio transmitter for plugging in iPods and a separate volume control just for the bass. Deep, as they say. A lot of time and effort went into assembling playlists for these iPods, and it showed. Considering the absolute slow stillness of the languid float, we would've had to work pretty hard to find a song that didn't work.
And speaking of music on the river, earlier in the week, before the float, I was in New Orleans for a music distribution convention. It was my first time at this particular distributor's con, and my first time in NOLA in about 11 or 12 years. I was there for only a couple of days and pretty much saw only the French Quarter. It looked more or less like I remembered it, though much quieter. Not quite Andromeda Strain quiet, but noticably hushed for sure.
Walking down Bourbon Street at midday on a Tuesday and seeing so few people was sort of eerie. Jesse, the owner of the internet cafe I frequented a couple of times, told me that business is 35% of what it was pre-Katrina--and that's on the rare "good" day. According to Jesse, 80% of the housing in New Orleans is still unlivable. There are no decent hospitals. Best-case scenario, NOLA is back on its feet in 10 years. But really, he says, it's going to take more like 25-40.
Those are sober thoughts for a place called the Big Easy, but not everything there is lost. The people are the same. A little weariness seasoned with a valid sense of abandonment, to be sure, but the locals are still friendly, hospitable, welcoming. You can still grab a go-cup on your way out into the night.
Meanwhile, back at the record convention, despite the most dismal summer in record biz history, spirits were high. Hanging out with these record reps, retailers, rackjobbers and label freaks, there was perhaps a sense that we're survivors too (or, at least, so far). A storm is wreaking havoc on the music industry. The landscape is already irrevocably altered and the water's still rising.
But, implacable survivors of the record wars are we (or perhaps Queens and Kings of Denial). We managed to have a fantastic dinner and then head over to Le Chat Noir for some music showcases (and open bar). There, I saw a genre-bending torch singer, an Ani-meets-Smashing Pumpkins singer-songwriter, and though I'm not really the singer-songwriter type (at all), a song called "People Look Around" slayed me, but that may have just been a location thing. And then, there was the smooth jazz group that had me through the opening "Grazing in the Grass" but then that muted trumpet sound meshed with the keys and I that it was smooth jazz. Back to the open bar for me.
But it does go to show you, whether you're mindlessly floating down the Colorado on a raft or hanging on a corner a few blocks from the mighty Missisip', pondering a city--every song sounds good on the river.
Here are two that sounded particularly good.
Andre Afram Asmar :: "Duniagariba" (from Racetothebottom)
Saeed Al Kaabi :: "Mabd'a We Nihaya" (from Music from the Arabian Gulf)
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