Sometimes I talk about tracing my own personal musical discoveries back to their source. Mississippi John Hurt brings that idea to the extreme with his album Today!
Here's how I discovered Mississippi John Hurt: I was fucking around on RYM, and one of their genre charts indicated that this was the #1 ranked "Piedmont blues" album of all time. The genre description states that this genre is basically old-timey Appalachian music. But I think maybe I'd prefer to call it "proto-folk."
I call it that because what I would consider peak folk is early '60s Dylan, who was greatly influenced by blues artists like MJH. And this is my way acknowledging the influence that MJH had on BD and all the rest of that specific NY scene. For a long time, one of my favorite Dylan songs was "Corrina, Corinna." I had no idea that it was a John Hurt song to begin with.
(I've already written too much for this blurb, but apparently he'd been singing the blues since the 1880s, and some random ass NY folk bro sought him out on his farm and forced him to record his music. Shout out to the archivists of the world.)
It's starts off like Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. The vocals barrel in like a younger Bob Mould. Honestly, at some points, it sounds like a hungry E Street Band. Other times I could maybe see something like Pains of Being Pure at Heart. The Tubs are everything, and there's nothing like them.
This usually happens around this time each year. I get attached to some fucking rock band that no one seems to be talking about, I listen to them every time I am faced with a decision on the infinite iPod, and then they end up being like #3 or #4 on my Top 20 of that year. Basically, there's nothing to say about the Tubs except for the fact that they released the best album of the year so far. Check out Dead Meat.
Something Borrowed
Remember when all your friends started a Xanga, and then like 99% of them stopped updating after like two weeks? That kind of happened again recently, except instead of your friends it was every music critic you know and love, and instead of Xanga it was Substack.
To the latter point: man, it sucks that we don't call 'em "blogs" anymore, but instead "newsletters" or whatever the fuck. To the former point: you would think that people who are paid to write about music would be the people who are keeping up with the extracurricular blogging, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Most Substacks I've smashed the "free subscribe" button on in the past four months or so have gone radio silence since.
I think we need to highlight the exceptions here, basically. (Your exception is PoYB; this is the 556th day in a row we're publishing something on this blog.) Here's my big personal exception. Josh Terry's No Expectations on Substack. Read it HERE, and subscribe for free.
Every Thursday morning I get a newsletter in my inbox. Week 006 has had the best writing so far. This was in the context of a book review, but it some to be on a deeper level:
"Some of my most cherished memories with friends haven't happened at bars, restaurants, or shows, but on a couch trading songs back and forth for hours. Sitting around and listening to music is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to get to know someone: you slowly begin to understand their tastes, their personal histories with a given artist, the way they talk about the things they're excited about, and arguably most important, what pisses them off. It's not that I don't love going out (I obviously do!) but being alone with someone and chatting about bands and songwriting is so distinctly intimate and rewarding. It's made me a more curious listener both as a music fan and as a friend. Plus, it's led to some wonderful new obsessions. There are few better feelings than seeing someone you love become a fan of something you love because you recommended it."
This is a man who is optimistic about music and the bonds we form because of music. His blog newsletter is well written and has a lot of good suggestions. I'm more willing to listen to those suggestions because I feel like Josh Terry is someone whom I can trust with this shit. His is the one true Substack (so far).
Eight days later—sorry! I write these things in advance! Here are my Super Bowl Halftime Show thoughts, as old as they are.
Context setting: I don't really like any Rihanna songs. I don't hate them, but there wasn't a single Super Bowl LXVII halftime compilation song that I thought "wow this is good!" There were some fine songs. That's it. "Good" honestly probably equates to "recognizable" in this context.
But I think if you're saying that it was a bad SB halftime performance, then you're probably focusing on the songs too much. I'm think about the TV of it all as well. There was an insanely high production value as well. Rihanna was definitely in first-trimester mode, but the cameras made up for that. Basically: "here's how we can make a static shot of a still and bored pregnant woman look like the most insane shot ever."
Because of who I am and whom I listen to, there's always going to be that trepidation with the ultra-mega pop star that NFL lackey Jay-Z hires for the annual event. Yes, of COURSE I wish that some stupid ass indie punk rock band was playing their hits for 100 million people. But that's not how the industry works. And so I'm pretty glad that Rihanna was this year's sacrificial lamb, since she seemed too cool for the slaughter.
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