"it took me about three or four weeks to toilet train my cat, nightlife. most of the time is spent moving the box very gradually to the bathroom." -charles mingus
"she had a chihuahua named carlos that had some kind of skin disease and was totally blind." -tom waits
"he had a huge room with nothing in it except this huge vast hammond organ, right next door to the police." -david bowie
"he's got a mind like a sewer, and a heart like a fridge" -elvis costello
"you can't hold the hand of a rock 'n' roll man." -joni mitchell
"lou's jukebox spun for love and many other things, too: beauty, pain, history, courage, mystery" -laurie anderson
"hey there, hey now, well, you can make a pacemaker blink, easy thing, make a man's heart go bibbity boom. -john cale
"i've still got things inside me, sad things, happy things, that people don't know about." -loretta lynn
"to try to maximize the relationship of listening to a record through promotion is like experiencing driving a car by reading about stimulus programs." -bonnie 'prince' billy
"too much cheesecake too soon! old money's better than new" -roxy music
"my mother used to tell me about vibrations. to think that invisible feelings, invisible vibrations existed scared me to death." -brian wilson
"i could even find it in my heart to love mike love." -belle & sebastian
"i'm going to boogie my scruples away." -lowell george
"i'm a lunatic, and you are so super cool." - george jones
"i'm good and i'm bad and i'm happy and i'm sad and i'm lazy" -willie nelson
"i drive a rolls-royce, cause it's good for my voice." -t.rex
"i mean every letter in the words in the sentences of my quotes." -lil' wayne
"lyrics choochoo from my mouth like locomotion." - pato banton
"i'm dealing in rock and roll. i'm not a bonafide human being." -phil spector
"phil approached me with a bottle of kosher red wine in one hand and a .45 in the other, put his arm around my shoulder and shoved the revolver into my neck and said, 'leonard, i love you.' i said, 'i hope you do, phil.'" -leonard cohen
"they'd whisper at each other and look at phil and whisper at each other. finally this lady, tanked, comes over to phil and says, 'alright, sonny, what's your problem?' and he said, 'premature ejaculation, what's yours?'" -tom wolfe
"i bite my nails and if that fails i go get myself stoned, but when i do i think of you and head myself back home." -gram parsons
"i would say groucho marx, to name one thing, and willie mays, and the second movement of the jupiter symphony, and louis armstrong's recording of potatohead blues, swedish movies, naturally. sentimental education by flaubert, marlon brando, frank sinatra, those incredible apples and pears by cezanne, the crabs at sam wo's, tracy's face." -woody allen
brian eno songs that will make good book titles for my 10-volume memoir, in order: here he comes, baby's on fire, golden hours, brutal ardour, taking tiger mountain, events in dense fog, through hollow lands, some of them are old, everything merges with the night, dead finks don't talk
ry cooder albums that every man should own: into the purple valley, boomer's story, paradise and lunch
"really, we don't want people twiddling their goatees over our stuff." -radiohead
"i love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. and mother. and god." -johnny cash
"the moon is clear, the sky is bright, i'm happy as the horse's shite." -the pogues
"i hope that you all out there, young, old, tall, short, fat or thin, quick or slow, no matter what kind or color or shape or person you are, if you like to make music, why, go ahead. -pete seeger
"chuck berry isn't merely the greatest of the rock and rollers, or rather, there's nothing mere about it. say rather that unless we can somehow recycle the concept of the great artist so that it supports chuck berry as well as it does marcel proust, we might as well trash it." -robert christgau
mashable says about us: "expect the unexpected with this awesome gem. groovy." and 33 1/3: "nice to have someone steer me in a worthwhile direction"
two beautiful things happened to me last month. on sunday april 17, i went with my mom and dad to see ry cooder, my favorite guitar player in the universe, the man who played mandolin and slide guitar
for the rolling stones
on let it bleed and sticky fingers, on little feat’s debut (when lowell george couldn’t make it, because he was off somewhere wasted), and on no less than three of randy newman’s albums, plus also solo records that are as good as any of those. at the cocert he played old louvin brothers and bluegrass numbers with ricky skaggs and his wife sharon white, with her sister singing harmonies and their father playing piano, and it was the closest i’ve ever come to understanding what gram parsons meant when he said he played cosmic american music.
and then something even more remarkable happened: only a few days after hearing ry, i saw one of the only other living musicians i admire more, caetano veloso, who helped invent tropicalia in the late 1960s by weaving those cosmic american melodies with british psychedlia and his local brazilian bossa nova. he played with his friend gilberto gil, and it was the kind of music that makes grown adults weep. the young brazilian woman who sat next to me, a stranger, didn’t just spent the two hours crying, she was weeping. i mean really sobbing: hands at her head, shoulders shuddering, cries unstifled. caetano played his guitar as beautifully as ry did, and he sang with the same sweet softness that made asa branca – up above – sound so good in 1972.
#1066: bob dylan, van dyke parks & ry cooder - do re mi (woody guthrie) (2009)
today i discovered that my hero ry cooder, who plays guitar like ed ruscha paints gas stations, julia child roasts chicken, jackie robinson catches flyballs and agnes martin draws lines – beautifully – just joined twitter. what has he written about so far? a hand-painted sign on a truck, los angeles drag racing in the 1950s, ufos, singers, mexican pointy boots, a drink called rye cooder, flaco jimenez, trees and the late beto quintanilla, of course. i’m grateful that i can read him on a website, just like i’m grateful that i can listen to the beautiful, ancient, clear, loving music he’s made about true love, hard times and bad men, often played while wearing reallybadhawaiian shirts. i love his weird, wobbly voice, but most of all i love him playing with other people, like ali farka toure, or randy newman, and, above, playing woody guthrie’s best song about california with two other american heroes, bob dylan and van dyke parks. you’ll find mr. dyke parks on twitter, too, writing about birds, forgiveness, allen toussaint, and decent people.
#953: ali farka toure with ry cooder - goye kur (new orleans, 1994)
nine things that ry cooder, california’s finest guitar player, said about mali’s holy ali farka toure during the interview for talking timbuktu’s liner notes:
(1) he has a way of looking down into your throat in a funny way, even when he’s drunk, and knowing a few things.
(2) he’ll just come in and reset the molecules in the room… on the level of a faith healer. on the level of a shaman.
(3) the guy is a big, strong, important man… it’s an expression of his tremendous self-confidence, which is miles wide… you have to get to kind of a soft place with a guy like that, with him.
(4) all through the years, thousands, eons worth of years, what they must have known or had going was a sense that the music is all there, and all you have to do is just become a conduit for it.
(5) that stuff is kaleidoscopic, it all works together, but it’s very cozy… to me, it’s like lightnin’ hopkins backwards.
(6) i’d like to take bootsy collins and some other people and go to africa and see what the fuck’s going on.
(7) he rolls around like a sailor, he rolls, it’s real good… i’m sure they stay up all night over there.
(8) so he says, “wait a minute.” he’s stopped. he’s always speaking french. “where’s the ocean?” i said, “it’s about two blocks.” boy, he put the fiddle down and wouldn’t touch it. i said, “what’s the matter?” he said, “there’s a lot of spirit world in the ocean, and if they hear this and misunderstand, the ocean will come up and drown us right quick.” so i’m not going to argue with that. he’s not making a big thing of it, like “i have seen the vision” and being dramatic. he’s just saying, “no way am i going to play this fiddle two blocks from the ocean – period. don’t ask me to.” “okay.” then we got out in the studio in hollywood, and he began to play a thing and put the fiddle right down. i said, “what’s the matter now?” he said, “there are too many doors in here. the doors are a problem.”
(9) but you know me, i’m just a turnip truck driver from santa monica. i don’t necessarily have any real understanding of this stuff.
“every note and word and gesture has meaning, and your notes and sung words line up with those of your friends and make a whole statement about life that is tiny but eternal.”
#900: randy newman, ry cooder and linda rondstadt - rider in the rain (1983)
friends, thank you so much for making it to music video #900. randy, linda, ry and i would like to remind you that we’re all riders in rain. and we’re on the prairie together.
this year, i’m thinking of making a series of sentimental ry cooder-themed valentine’s day cards. “true love can be such sweet harmony… if you do the best that you can!” the first one will say, underneath a drawing of ryland in his mid-70s hawaiian shirt and ponytail. the kids will love that! it’s my ticket out of this godforsaken town, i can feel it. all kidding aside, ry cooder’s guitar playing can beat up yours.
#898: ry cooder - tattler (or, you can’t stop the tattler) (live, 1977)
ry c.’s the only man on earth who could make david foster wallace look like a bad bandana wearer, while at the same time giving the distinct impression that lowell george and keith richards and everyone else didn’t really know much about slide guitar. but can anyone else a hawaiian shirt like this? he was and is just that perfect, even when playing an anti-polygamy pop number.
#842: ry cooder - how can a poor man stand such times and live? (1987)
here is mr. cooder seven months before 1987’s black monday stock market collapse, playing a song that was first recorded in new york city two months after 1929’s black tuesday. he’s alongside accordionist flaco jimenez, who started performing 1946, but who wasn’t there to play the song with him in june 1974, the summer that nixon resigned with peace signs and india detonated its first nuclear bomb under the project name smiling buddha.
#670: the hollies - sorry suzanne (1969, top of the pops)
the other day i was thinking very hard about how weezer’s suzanne, with its references to not one or two but three members of guns n’ roses, stacks up to leonard cohen’s suzanne, which is perfect, basically. as if it weren’t complicated enough already, i just remembered randy newman’s suzanne, a song that not only begins “i saw your name, baby, in a telephone booth, and it told all about you, i hope it was the truth,” but has what i believe is ry cooder’s slide guitar moaning lasciviously the whole way through. and then, amazingly, there’s also the hollies, singing to a fourth suzanne, in white suits, holding silly microphones, and with a very nice guitar solo, too. plus also lou reed’s mid-8s i love you, suzanne, last and very much least, thanks especially to a video that begins with 32 seconds of a phone ringing loudly.
being on vacation is like lounging around naked or eating grapes from the vine–totally resplendent, and wildly relaxing, and without a doubt something one should do only very rarely. these are the albums i’ve been listening to with my family while slouching around this week in massachusetts. not only are they perfect, especially at certain parts of a mid-august day, but they’re available for semi-legal download thanks to glorious blogs like zamboni soundtracks, which, thank god, is back from a long hiatus.
10:35am: harry nilsson’s nilsson schmilsson - i’m sure it’s been said before, but the gotta get up/driving along/early in the morning triptych must be one of history’s great album openers. while you’re showering there’s the coconut/let the good times roll/jump into the fire trio to put even more pep into your already peppy stepping.
12:15pm: ry cooder’s paradise and lunch - over sandwiches you learn everything you need to know about melody, martinis, r&b harmonies, divorcees, tobacco, cornets, and coroners. as if the album needed more heart, ry’s wife painted the cover.
3:30pm: tom zé’s todos os olhos - the only early-70s brazilian album that sounds like the sun, looks like an eye, and turns out to be a marble in an ass.
6:00pm: yo la tengo’s fakebook - sad like dusk, happy like dusk.
8:05pm: caetano veloso’s jóia - good for digestion, great for creaky joints, perfect for easing that summer evening choleric yellow bile feeling in the old gall bladder.
10:55pm: the monkees’ pisces, aquarius, capricorn & jones ltd. - beer drinking music at its finest. was cuddly toy written by 10:35am’s harry nilsson? it was! is pleasant valley sunday 1967’s best song about the suburbs? of course. doesn’t drummer mickey dolenz’s face remind you of my college friend alex nemser? how could it not!
12:05am: blind willie johnson’s sweeter as the years go by - if you meet the special someone who considers this semi-appropriate music to make love to your special someone by, you will know for sure that you have met a very sweet special someone.
#502: ry cooder - the dark end of the street (1976)
now that december 2009 is winding down, it’s very important to identify the single greatest guitar solo of the decade–a two-and-a-half-minute ry cooder solo without a lick of fast-fingered shredding, played with such sweet modesty that you can hear the three back up singers clapping along. even lowell george would have a hard time explaining where this kind of soft sparkle comes from. it’s guitar playing that sounds like a first kiss. in fact, the solo of the decade is so good it was recorded 33 years ago on the bbc’s old gray whistle test, though we wouldn’t be watching and listening to it now without the wonders of modern video sharing! technology is probably going to kill us all, but first it’s providing lots of good music.
