Sunday Screening

Are you ready to have your world rocked? Yes? Then watch this weirdly sleazy performance by Billy Joe Royal, who you might remember as the genius behind "Down in the Boondocks:"

That's "Cherryhill Park," a 1969 single which for some reason none of my friends have ever heard, even though it is clearly an oldies-radio staple (and if you knew this song before hearing it today, PLEASE comment so I don't feel like a crazy person). It's part of that weird, self-contained little subgenre of overdramatic horn-driven pop music that grew during the late 1960s -- the best example of which, to my mind, is the execrable 1968 hit "Young Girl" by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.

(Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, unquestionably, made the world worse for everyone who inhabited it. If "Young Girl" didn't persuade you, consider -- and I link this with hesitation, because it's probably a crime in some states -- "This Girl Is A Woman Now." There is some music which just deserves to be called "evil." ...I am digressing.)

Anyway, I want you to turn that song over in your mind a little bit; strip away Billy Joe's dirt-stache and awesome proto-disco moves, and concentrate on the tune. Specifically, sing to yourself: MAR-Y-HILL! SURE WAS FUN down in Cherryhill Paa-ark!, preferably so loudly that your roommates can hear you. Have you done it? No? Slackers. But let the tune sink into your mind for a bit anyway -- MAR-y-hill! -- and see if it doesn't turn into this:

Perhaps not. (It might only work if, like me, you sing horribly out of tune.) But I maintain that "Cherryhill Park" shares those three key notes with the opening notes of the immortal Theme from Super Mario Bros., by Koji Kondo. DOOP doop doop! Music is a wonderfully small world sometimes.

I'm going to leave it there, because I just can't resist the allure of my beckoning schoolwork -- but if you're in a Mario mood, you should enjoy both the famous Mario Frustration video (warning: very profane) and the lesser-known Hardest Mario Game Ever. (Just give them a chance. They grow on you, like weeds.) Until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend, and this is an open thread.

Sunday Screening

I thought I was done forever with the Sunday Screening. I rather lost my momentum this fall; Sundays seemed better spent relaxing, watching real-life television, perhaps even doing "schoolwork." But after Tuesday's election, and the consequent earthquake in American politics, I've been thinking; no Sunday Screening? That's not change we can believe in! So without further ado:

What better time than now to look at 1980, birth year of the late, lamented Reagan Revolution? I love this clip both because it has a priceless few seconds of channel-flipping at the beginning (nothing gives you the sense of an era better than channel-flipping), and because the WPIX newscast is a great demonstration of the contradictions of the time. The theme, for instance, is the famous Move Closer to Your World tune used for decades by Philadelphia's WPVI; this song dates from 1970, and I can call it a song not only because it's danceable but because believe it or not it has lyrics:

Move closer to your world, my friend / Take a little bit of time
Move closer to your world, my friend / And you'll see...

Just a little bit of time / That's all it takes to bring your world together
Take a little bit of time / Don't turn away, my friend, tomorrows are forever

Get close to people / Your world needs you to care, to share it
Take the time / Join hands, my friend, with all the people in your world

Hard to reconcile this peace-and-love sentiment with the news of the day (in this instance, that America was being INVADED BY SCARY CUBANS). But the dominant cultural paradigm, and the Carter administration, still had that sensibility to it. (Now, TV news varied widely in the U.S., from the austere Midwesterners to the Boston lunatics, but you get my point.) By 1980 people were, understandably, feeling alienated both from their junk culture and their lame, ineffectual politics. And remember, it was an emotionally simpler time, a time when children could have long phone conversations with strangers--

--without consequence. So people were open to new frames in their politics, and vulnerable to an emerging politics of fear:

That's a hell of a thing. I hadn't seen that until today; amazing how closely it mirrors the scare-politics that Karl Rove elevated to an art form. (I keep thinking about Saxby Chambliss' famous 2002 ad against Cleland that used Osama bin Laden's face -- and not coincidentally, Chambliss' latest ad for his impending runoff against Jim Martin plays the decidedly retrograde 9/11 card. The more things change...) You are looking here at the start of conservative politics as we know it. My Indy article touched on this -- that 1980 began an aberrant, freakish period in our history, one which is just closing now.

But I don't mean to be too harsh on 1980. Sure, it was a pretty awful year in terms of music (not only did Zeppelin break up, but worse, ABBA didn't) and television (The Rockford Files was cancelled, and yet the year's best new show was Bosom Buddies with Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari); sure, John Lennon was killed and Robert Mugabe came to power in Zimbabwe. I just can't dismiss the year wholesale, though, for one simple reason:

Yes. Talking Heads released Remain in Light, which spawned the immortal "Once in a Lifetime." Not only is this a great song in its own right, it also gave us one of the most perfect and brilliant music videos ever. Let that one sink in, and enjoy the rest of your weekend. This is an open thread.

...What, you thought I was going to do a riff on Obama's victory being a once-in-a-lifetime moment or whatever? Jesus. Give me a little credit here.

Sunday Screening

You're probably familiar with Glen Campbell, one of the most prominent producers of execrable 1970s countrypolitan music. You know his terrible signature song--

--and you know the one good song he recorded (so good, in fact, that many people rightly count it among the all-time great American songs)--

(pause to let "Wichita Lineman" sink in; listen to it again if you want)

--BUT. You probably don't know, as I didn't before I consulted Wikipedia, that in the early- and mid-1960s Glen Campbell was a highly regarded session musician who played guitar on everything from, this is true*, Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night" to the Monkees' "I'm a Believer". Mull that one over.

AND you probably didn't know that Glen Campbell is still recording albums. Yes! Just this year he released an album called Meet Glen Campbell, because apparently both he and his producers are aging and don't grasp unidirectional time anymore; it contains covers of, among others, Tom Petty, Lou Reed, U2, and -- wait for it -- Green Day. Glen Campbell did a great thing by covering Green Day, because he took "Time of Your Life," already a song that makes sensible people gouge their eyes out, and managed to make it worse. Steel yourself:

I wanted you to hear this -- because now, for the rest of your life, every song you hear will sound that much better. Congratulations: you've been Glenoculated.

(NOTE: Another thing I learned, in the process of researching this garbage, is that "Time of Your Life" is actually called "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)". This surprised me, considering that at my high school, this was the song they'd play over the P.A. after a student had died. I understand that small class sizes were a priority in Ontario public schools, but geez...)

And now I'm off to weep for the world. Enjoy the rest of your weekends; this is an open thread.

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*N.B. I would be completely unsurprised if this isn't true.
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UNRELATED: Go over to Legion tonight, when you have a minute. I'm sitting next to Garrett and Mel, in our sad little self-hating Harvard version of the Flophouse, and they are brewing something interesting.

You know things are getting weird when Bill O'Reilly makes sense

If you watch one political video this year:

I love this clip, because it's a perfect embodiment of the Republican coalition imploding.

O'Reilly, in his clumsy right-wing way, is trying to tap into the overwhelming public anger at big business and a government that lets it run amok (he does so by blaming a "lack of leadership," which is not quite right, but it's a start). That's what O'Reilly does; he's a rabble-rouser. And watch as Cavuto, who is ostensibly on the same team, gets not just upset but righteously indignant at the suggestion that oil companies aren't playing nice -- and, amazingly, inveighs against the New Deal in the process. Hilarity results. Clearly, both of these people are crazy, but it's two different kinds of crazy that can't stay on the same planet for much longer. (Watch for the glorious moment where O'Reilly calls Cavuto a "pinhead" and Cavuto responds by saying "I'm not going to buy your next book." I'm amazed these people can communicate at all.)

For almost 30 years, Republicans have constituted themselves around the Reagan coalition: a shotgun marriage between wealthy urban/suburban capitalists and religious/alienated lower-income whites. It was never a good fit, and lately they've had more and more interal flareups (see: the immigration issue, which clove them neatly in half), but right now there's a potential death blow lurking. This economic crisis is tearing the GOP's two driving impulses -- millionaire free-market-ism and popular xenophobia -- apart from each other. And if the crisis gets more serious, and base Republicans begin to see the financial elite not as their allies but as their enemies (which, by the way, is exactly what they are), watch for some serious carnage.

And the Obama campaign has the perfect opportunity to maximize it, scoop up as many disaffected struggling Republicans as possible, and potentially redefine the partisan coalitions for decades to come. God, I love election season!

(Both videos via Al Giordano.)

Sunday Screening

Yes. This exists. (Persevere through the first bit, it's worth it.)

So who else is back on campus already?

Sunday Screening

Everybody, this is Corb Lund. Corb, this is everybody. Now that we're all acquainted, let's hear some music.

CORB LUND is Canadian -- I know, me writing about Canadian music, you're shocked -- from Alberta, to be specific, and he plays country music (variously, along "the Corb Lund Band" or, lately, the wonderfully named "Hurtin' Albertans"). But it's not really country like most people understand it. Yes, there's yodeling in this song (which is part of a long tradition, actually, going back to Jimmie Rodgers who is arguably the founder of country music); but more than that, Corb Lund's music is just weird. Dense, inscrutable, sometimes deliberately stupid and sometimes deadly serious; you won't hear much else like it. Here's another example:

Now, I'm no fan of that video -- can't quite tell if it's a deliberate throwback to grunge, or just cheap and ADD-addled, but either way I'll pass -- but the song is just great. (That line: "This is grape juice and cheap vodka, man! This isn't even wine!" kills me every time. Not to mention it's an excuse to bring up the recent ridiculousness involving PZ Myers and a Communion wafer, which you should look at if you need more proof that this country's religious right is completely unhinged). You can hear the obvious Dylan influence in this one, but it's got that rootsy twist to it that adds a new dimension. Here's another, much more serious (and political) song -- follow the lyrics now:

Corb Lund's music, like a lot of Canadian rock, is an acquired taste. (I'm thinking here specifically of the Tragically Hip, whose songs are so dense both lyrically and musically that it often takes dozens of listenings before you can unravel them -- and that's not counting the YEARS of radio acclimation you need before you can get past Gord Downie's weird-ass voice.) But once you acquire it, man, do you ever acquire it; I've been spending a lot of time lately trying to tease out "Expectation and the Blues," under the logic that any country song which rhymes "over-intellectualize" with "self-actualize" must be worth understanding. (Here's a little low-quality snippet, if you're hardy enough to try it for yourself).

And it's not like he doesn't have a sense of humor. Here's "The Truck Got Stuck," one of Corb's most irresistibly dumb and catchy songs -- I warn you now, this is a talking blues about trucks getting stuck in mud, and if you hear it you WILL have it playing in your head for days. Listen:

(Agriculture Canada is our equivalent of the USDA, incidentally. Many Canadian federal agencies are just the name of what they do with the word "Canada" tacked on -- "Health Canada", ""Environment Canada", "Sport Canada", "Western Economic Diversification Canada", etc. You get used to it.)

Anyway; if you want to hear more Corb Lund, his albums are in all the usual places. I recommend eMusic, which sells real DRM-free MP3s at sensible prices ($10 for 30), and has a catalog of everything you need (they just don't carry the major labels, which is fine, because all that mainstream shit is on the filesharing networks anyway). Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of your weekends; this is an open thread.

What Not To Do On CNN

This clip has been making the rounds today, in which Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) does a total faceplant trying to articulate any contrast between McCain and Bush on the economy. This is one of the worst appearances by a high-profile surrogate you'll ever see, and it highlights the severe message difficulty McCain's campaign is having on the economy. Look:

Brutal.

(Also, as Taegan Goddard notes -- we can probably strike Mark Sanford off McCain's VP list.)

Sunday Screening

OH MY GOD. Seems The Americanization of Emily, one of my favorite relatively-unknown classics, is available in full on YouTube (and in handy playlist form, at that). It's been up for over a month, which is a good sign that the YouTube Copyright Gestapo isn't on the hunt for it in particular, but these things often vanish suddenly so get it while you can. To whet your appetite, here is an appropriately bizarre and incoherent trailer:

Don't let the black & white fool you, this was 1964; the young James Garner plays opposite the younger Julie Andrews in a biting satire of war and war-politics. Almost unknown and criminally underrated, this is everything Dr. Strangelove should have been: calm, intelligent, and devastating. (I hold Dr. Strangelove, like all of Kubrick, to be criminally OVERrated, but that's for another day.) It's not a great film, to be sure -- the directing is lackluster, and Julie Andrews is not exactly known for her dramatic range -- but the writing alone makes it more than worthwhile. Paddy Chayefsky, who you probably know as the guy who wrote Network in 1976 and then died, is the force at work here; Americanization of Emily is one of a series of movies he did as he transitioned out of 1950s TV and radio. (I'm not qualified to comment on the rest of Chayefsky's work -- the only one I've seen is the absurd Paint Your Wagon from 1969, with Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood, singing. Let me tell you, the only worthwhile thing about seeing Paint Your Wagon is that you can subsequently say you sat through it -- a not insubstantial accomplishment, actually. ...I'm digressing.)

I imagine that some of you shiftless, MTV-addled teenagers will lack the patience to watch this whole movie (and you productive, career-building Harvard types certainly won't have the time); if so, I demand you at least watch this one scene. Here, James Garner devastates Julie Andrews' war-widow mother at a garden tea party, delivers a subversive speech about the virtues of cowardice, and in his grinning, clean-cut, all-American way, starts the 1960s. Skip to 3:27 and watch through into the next clip.

I'll leave you with that to ponder, and for heaven's sake, watch the entire movie. Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of your weekend; this is an open thread.

Sunday Screening

As a lover of classic pop culture, I watch a lot of videos that are corny. A lot that are cheesy. A lot that are campy. But less often do I find something, from what was at one time the centerpoint of the American mainstream, that is completely bugshit insane. Look:

That's Jan & Dean, performing their 1960 single "White Tennis Sneakers" on what I am assuming is American Bandstand. You can tell just by looking at them that there was something seriously wrong with these boys.

They were pioneers of surf music, which is best remembered these days for producing the immortal Beach Boys, but which was also a fad in its own right in the early 1960s that produced unbelievable amounts of dreck. My analogy would be that the Beach Boys were to surf music what the Bee Gees were to disco: a group of musical geniuses whose brilliance was outpaced tenfold by meritless commercial imitators. And if the Beach Boys are the Bee Gees, then Jan & Dean have to be ABBA: talented but totally synthetic and really, really creepy. To illustrate, here is the ultimate text of the surf genre, Jan & Dean's decidedly pre-feminist 1963 hit "Surf City" -- which was co-written, by the way, by the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson:

This shit was everywhere. Here's a particularly unnerving little thing, a clip from a 1963 TV pilot called "Surf Scene" starring Jan & Dean themselves -- I'll let you decide for yourself why the networks never picked it up:

Surf music, always a strictly American phenomenon, passed when the Beatles came along and pop-rock as we know it today began. But Jan & Dean kept at it; Jan (his full name was Jan Berry) suffered debilitating injury, including brain damage, in a 1966 car accident, and briefly the name "Jan & Dean" was used for both an album entirely by Dean and, later, a truly freaky psychedelic album called "Carnival of Sound" recorded by the convalescent Jan, his girlfriend, Glen Campbell, Davy Jones of the Monkees, and Phil Spector's studio musicians, among others. It is a scattershot, nonsensical collection of songs and random noise; their label (Warner) never released it. (I had the luck to get it from BigO, a strange website run by Singaporean leftists who regularly upload rare lost albums and concert bootlegs, then take them down almost immediately. Want to hear John Cage in San Francisco, 1965? Get it while it's hot...)

Yet Jan & Dean pressed on. Here, as proof, see one of the most incredible things I ever found on YouTube: this is from a VHS tape called "Surfing Beach Party" that Jan & Dean made, apparently, in 1983. This thing will scramble all your chronological indicators. Look:

Are you trying to figure out why that clip feels so strange? I'll tell you -- and it's not just because the costume designers couldn't seem to figure out whether it was the 80s or the 50s (and the song is from the 60s!). It's because, even though "Surfing Beach Party" is a comparatively recent production, it's completely without irony. These boys are totally earnest! And that just doesn't happen in our understanding of pop music, post-1960s. It's not coincidental that I mentioned the Beatles above; they changed the paradigm for pop, which they performed with a knowing smirk instead of the traditional big ol' grin. Most latter-day performances of great classic pop understand this and temper themselves accordingly (not to mention, the songs are so great that they stand on their own) -- Jan & Dean, clinging as they are to a tiny shard of Kennedy-era flotsam, have no such luxury. If you're anything like me, that makes you uncomfortable.

I'll leave you to ponder that. Enjoy the rest of your weekend; this is an open thread.

Good taste

Any reservations I may have had about Barack Obama -- ok, ok, shut up. But if I had had any reservations at this point, they would be gone, after I read this:

The Democratic presidential candidate discusses the music he listened to while growing up -- Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind & Fire, Elton John, the Rolling Stones -- and the music on his iPod -- all of the above plus Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Jay-Z, Bruce Springsteen, Howlin' Wolf, Yo-Yo Ma, Sheryl Crow, the Grateful Dead and others.

But perhaps Obama's most intriguing response came when he was asked to name his favorite Dylan songs.

"Actually, one of my favorites during the political season is 'Maggie's Farm,' " he replied. "It speaks to me as I listen to some of the political rhetoric."

MAGGIE'S FARM. What a classic. Most people know that when Dylan went electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he played the revolutionary "Like A Rolling Stone" -- but fewer people know that the first song he played, the shot heard round the world, was "Maggie's Farm." Picture yourself at a folk festival, listening to placid acoustic songs, and then suddenly you're facing this (actual 1965 footage):

That right there is one of the most historic moments in rock music. Make sure you watch all the way through so you can hear the booing at the end. (There's a better version on DVD -- The Other Side of the Mirror, which I had the privilege to watch in its entirety during a PBS pledge drive -- that captures the boos and shouting from the crowd right from the first notes on that guitar.) Good choice, Sen. Obama; good choice.

Sunday Screening

OK, the day kind of got away from me. So I'm just going to present this, from the original 1976 production of Stephen Sondheim's sadly neglected Pacific Overtures -- it's "Someone In A Tree," a beautiful and haunting number which sort of recounts the negotiation of the Treaty of Kanagawa. Sondheim maintains that this is the best of all the songs he's written. Enjoy:

(If you can handle that you might also enjoy another long and bizarre number from the same show, Please Hello. I should warn you now, it's is nine minutes of 19th century European diplomats, played by Japanese actors on Broadway, singing about trade and territoriality. I love it, but I imagine I'm in the minority there...)

This is an open thread.

Sunday Screening

You thought there wouldn't be Sunday Screenings this summer? Ha. YOU CANNOT KILL THE SUNDAY SCREENING. YOU CAN ONLY MAKE IT STRONGER.

This, of course, is the immortal theme from Miami Vice, which -- and I suppose I should have seen this coming -- was not only a #1 single in 1985, but became a music video, starring the rather uncharismatic synthesizer artist Jan Hammer. (That face, when he turns with his guitar and looks at the camera... that face...)

It's one of the all-time great TV themes -- right up there, I'd argue, with Hawaii Five-O (which was in many ways Miami Vice's precursor) -- and it's fitting for a show that was so groundbreaking stylistically. Nothing on TV, then or now, is as visually and aurally arresting as Miami Vice; it was done quite deliberately in a style that was half action film, half music video, and which left no detail to chance. (Producer Michael Mann went so far as to forbid entire color spectra from the show, permitting only whites and pastels.) Look for instance at this iconic scene from the pilot episode, and see how perfectly every shot is composed:

(This, incidentally, is the one and only time Phil Collins was ever cool.)

Or try this selection of clips from a 1988 episode. Ignore the young Julia Roberts -- and Don Johnson's horrible, horrible mullet -- and just watch what they do with the camera:

There are Hollywood feature films with lower production values than this. Utterly amazing.

Miami Vice's heyday was brief; in its third season (1986-87) it was scheduled against Dallas, a blow from which it never recovered (and the subsequent revolving door of producers, which would include Dick Wolf of Law & Order fame among others, robbed the show of its aesthetic consistency). It was cancelled in 1989. Understandably; who could resist Dallas, a show that at that time starred Larry Hagman, Howard Keel, and a man named "Denk Rambo"? This is the 1986 premiere, as it aired:

(I especially love that clip because it contains almost none of actual Dallas, and a whole bunch of Dallas cross-promotion from Minneapolis local news. TV was less subtle in those days.)

Still Miami Vice is something you need to experience; those who are blessed with million-channel cable or satellite packages can see it on, believe it or not, the "Sleuth" Network (can these things possibly be profitable?), which also carries classics like Dragnet, Magnum P.I., and the criminally underremembered Rockford Files. I suggest you take some time this summer, in general, to learn about our TV heritage; what better are you going to be doing? Educating yourself? Changing the world? Come on...

Enjoy the rest of your weekends, everyone; this is an open thread.

"Sunday" Screening

Ok, so, I realize that, technically speaking, it is currently Tuesday. Whatever. I'm pulling an Eva here. It's exam period! Time is flexible! The days just sort of bleed together into an amorphous morass of eating, sleeping, and "studying" (or in my case, passive-aggressively ridiculing people who study). Besides, this time of year is hard on people, and would I desert you in your time of need? OF COURSE NOT:

You know, if this cartoon had been made in the 60s, everyone would have assumed it was by and for acid freaks. (Especially the part where the trolley changes shape at random. Or where the rabbit detaches his own foot, kisses it, and reattaches it.)

But no, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was a creation of none other than Walt "I Believe They Are Communists" Disney, and these "Trolley Troubles" date from 1927. This is the pre-Mickey Mouse era; Oswald was Disney's first major success. (Fun fact: rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit were actually owned by Universal Studios until 2006, when they were sold to Disney Inc. in exchange for -- this is true -- a release in sportcaster Al Michaels' contract from ESPN, so he could join John Madden on NBC's Monday Night Football.)

What else was happening in 1927, other than rabbit-induced train calamities? Well, several counties in the Fresno, CA area were introducting the dial telephone (note the wonderful use of onomatopoeia in this silent reel):

Buster Keaton starred in "The General", widely considered one of the great films of all time (watch it all in public domain):

and "Good News" premiered on Broadway. "Good News" was a mediocre musical about college life, notable mainly for producing the smash-hit dance craze "Varsity Drag." Basically, the Varsity Drag was the Charleston taken to the next power; it's an absurd, leaping, knee-slapping affair that can only be performed properly by stage dancers and professional gymnasts. Everyone loved it.

The best version of the Varsity Drag you'll ever see is from the 1930 film of "Good News," performed by Penny Singleton and a completely bananas chorus line. (Plus a baby in a trash can. Yes.) I can't embed this clip, so you'll have to go and watch it yourself -- and I insist that you do, if only because it is completely fucking insane. Meanwhile here's a more comprehensible, if still faintly batty, version from the 1947 film with June Allyson and a tone-deaf Peter Lawford:

...If that isn't good therapy for exam period, I don't know what is. Good luck with everything you've got remaining, congratulations to the seniors who are finished or finishing, and I'll see you down the line. (It's off to Canada with me this weekend, so I'm not likely to be around for a while. Don't trash the place.)

Sunday Screening

Well, as we look ahead to an Obama vs. McCain general election, we should start sketching out lines of argument we can use against the gentleman from Arizona. We can talk about his right-wing politics, his abysmal record, his wild-eyed militarism; but I have to say right now I'm not comfortable with attacks on McCain's age. We have too much dignity, and respect for our elders, to resort to... to...

OH HELL IT'S JUST TOO EASY.

Although I have to give Senator McCain credit here -- Matlock was a quality show. You got Andy Griffith, you got a courtroom, what's not to like?

(If you paid close attention there you might have noticed Fred Thompson seated in the audience. Intertextuality much?)

It occurs to me that some of you young'uns out there might not be familiar with the work of Andy Griffith. If anything you know him from The Andy Griffith Show, classic 1960s TV-Americana, best remembered today for giving us the catchiest theme song ever. But Andy Griffith had a long and fulfilling acting career; the highlight is undoubtedly Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd, 1957, a brilliant and gut-wrenching drama/satire. The Network of its day, this is a criminally underrated film that you owe it to yourself to see:

That clip doesn't quite bring it across, but it's a really discomfiting look at entertainment, business and politics. Go get a copy.

I'll close there. Hope reading period isn't too stressful for those of you who, unlike me, aren't Gov concentrators and therefore have work to do (suckers). Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I'll see you around; this is an open thread.

Sunday Screening

Why don't more people listen to bluegrass?

That's Chatham County Line, an amazing semi-traditional bluegrass band from Raleigh, NC. I don't have time to write at length about anything today -- if I were a sane person I'd be starting my paper about Irish revolutionary Patrick Pearse right now -- so I'll just urge you to check out their new album, IV. (Or at least download the leadoff single "Chip of a Star," which is truly beautiful and has a hook worthy of pop radio, here.)

Here's more Chatham County Line...

(That last one, "Company Blues," is probably my favorite of their songs; the album cut from Speed of the Whippoorwill is even better, since they all sing the chorus with this incredible hair-raising harmony. Go get it if you can.)

Anyway. Good luck with all the schoolwork everyone undoubtedly has, and I'll see you on the other side; this is an open thread.