Jim Finnigan Poop 2024


 

Mammy Yoakum ah Has Spoken Jim Finnigan Poop 2023
2024 THE YEAR OF TORTURE

 

I was not enthused about 'new music' this year. But, I gotta keep up with my old faves, so here goes:

 

    Buy The Tortured Poet's Department - Taylor Swift New or Used via Amazon    Buy New or Used via Amazon    Rent via iTunes [?]

  • The Tortured Poet’s Department – Taylor Swift – Somebody was ruining her life, but then she got Travis Kelce. A bunch of lovesick singer-songwriter-y stuff. I much prefer the brassier more vitriolic 'Red', but you gotta admire Tay-tay for taking over the music industry.
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    Rent Fidl Afire - Alicia Svigals via Amazon    Rent via Amazon    Rent via iTunes [?]

  • Fidl Afire – Alicia Svigals – klezmer violin – props to my new favorite WVKR (Vassar radio) show, Borscht Beat, although it's only on for an hour early Friday mornings. Still liking other WVKR shows including Geetmala, Mingus Moments, Radio Showtime, Big Blue Kitchen.
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    Buy Unholier Than Thou - 7/7/77 - the Unholy Modal Rounders New or Used via Amazon    Buy New or Used via Amazon    Rent via iTunes [?]

  • Unholier Than Thou – 7/7/77 – the Unholy Modal Rounders – Bottom Line shows by my all-time favorite "is he still crazy?" folkie. Lively & fun. I also had the privilege of hearing an unreleased 'Punishment Brothers' tape from the late 1970's that may someday get a release. I hope!
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    Buy Wildernauts - Peter Stampfel / Eli Smith / Walker Shepard New or Used via Amazon    Buy New or Used via Amazon    Rent via iTunes [?]

  • Wildernauts – Peter Stampfel/Eli Smith/Walker Shepard – newer studio stuff from the head Rounder – lotta fiddling around. Peter's getting his voice back, and recent Meta Pagans gigs have been a blast, including a barn burner set at the Brooklyn Folk Festival.
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    Buy Old Juniper - The Down Hill Strugglers New or Used via Amazon    Buy New or Used via Amazon    Rent via iTunes [?]

  • Old Juniper – The Down Hill Strugglers – a/k/a Jackson Lynch/Eli Smith/Walker Shepard – their best album. Great gigs at Tompkins Corners and Brooklyn Folk Festival too (though Walker Shepard was on paternity leave for the BFF gig).
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    Rent Howdy Do! - Hopalong Andrew via Amazon    Rent via Amazon    Rent via iTunes [?]

  • Howdy Do! Songs of the Urban Cowboy – Hopalong Andrew. John Denver's little known 'Thank
    God I'm a City Boy' and Gene Autry's 'Back in the City Again'. The kiddies loved his BFF set!
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    Rent Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key - Cole Quest and the City Pickers via Amazon    Rent via Amazon    Rent via iTunes [?]

  • Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key – Cole Quest and the City Pickers /&/ Christian & Cole Sing & Play – couple of lighthearted sets from Woody Guthrie's grandson. Another BFF discovery.
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    Buy Trout Mask Replica Replica - The One Eighty Gs  via Bandcamp    Buy via Bandcamp    Rent via iTunes [?]

  • Trout Mask Replica Replica – The One Eighty Gs – an acapella rendition of you know what. Including the 180 Gs vocalizing the backing instrumental bits. FOR FANS OF: The Residents. Best in small doses.
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    Homeland - The Linich Family Trio   Completed Kickstarter

  • Homeland – The Linich Family Trio – another acapella album – folk music from Georgia (not the one where Chump tried to get the Secretary of State to "find 11,780 votes" – the other Georgia – here we have the real stuff from Carl Linich, director of Bard College's Georgian Choir.
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    Buy ENO (soundtrack album) New or Used via Amazon    Buy New or Used via Amazon    Rent via iTunes [?]

  • ENO (soundtrack album) /&/ Bloom – Brian Eno – a greatest bits album, mostly Eno's ambience burbling away in the background – incongruously with Third Uncle popping up in the middle of it. The movie was pretty good, and seeing it twice was interesting – seeing how different each showing was. The Bloom thing was from his 2006 generative app, here made into a static .mp3 by Amazon music. I finally caught up with the Brian & Roger Eno Christmas song on the ambient-ish Winter Tales album from 2021. And I must note Bruce Brubaker's Eno Piano 2 release too.

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  • New Blue Sun – André 3000 – kinda picks up where my Carlos Niño pick from last year left off – a buncha the same people involved
  • Lewis Spybey (Mark Spybey, E. Graham Lewis, Dead Voices On Air) Now that Wire Mk.3 has been put to bed, the Wire bassist returns with a pretty good update on the Dome sound. Less impressed with Immersion's (Colin Newman's) 'Nanocluster Vol.2', though…
  • Little Hope – Sleater-Kinney – punchy return to form
  • Perma Blues – Natural Velvet – my friends from Baltimore just as punchy as Sleater-Kinney
  • Radios & Rainbows – Kate Pierson – in full Disco Diva mode for the first coupla songs, but then she settles into more familiar B-52's mode for most of the rest of the record.
  • Is there more to life than dancing? – NOËL – speaking of Disco Divas – reissue of a 1979 Sparks album in all but vocals – NOËL's vocals replacing Russell's – from sometime between 'No. 1 In Heaven' and 'Terminal Jive'.
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    REPORT from RAMSGATE: On-U Sound pretty quiet this year – releasing archive stuff – but I did find a couple of things work noting:

  • I Blinked – Dabtronic ft. Janique James & Mark Stewart – the best Tricky EP since, uh, Tricky
  • End of Times – David Harrow ft. Little Annie – another EP of 9 remixes – Little Annie back in electro-dub mode
  • Reset Mariachi EP – Panda Bear & Sonic Boom & Mariachi 2000 de Cutberto Pérez – some tracks from last year's 'Reset' and 'Reset In Dub' albums reworked inna Mariachi stylee
  • Portfolio – David M. Williams – Electro-dub remixes of Tackhead, Public Enemy, Del the Funky Homosapien, the Jungle Brothers and Mark Stewart
  • Shadow On The Day – Jeb Loy Nichols + Jennifer Carr – mellow keyboard set, including some covers, inna relaxed Van Morrison mode
  • A Thousand Threads – A Memoir – Neneh Cherry on Don Cherry, the Slits, Rip Rig + Panic, Buffalo Stance – I figure, it's a recording, why not include an audiobook on this list?
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    ALSO NOTED

  • Beaufort Scales – Christopher Cerrone with the Lorelei Ensemble
  • Rhythm Edge – Eric Person
  • Valley of Abandoned Songs – The Felice Brothers
  • Jamie Saft Trio Plays Monk – Jamie Saft Trio
  • Amelia – Laurie Anderson
  • Passages Through Music – Never Again – Lee Oskar
  • NYC 1978-1979 – Model Citizens
  • Indoor Safari – Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets
  • Many Worlds – Scott Petito
  • You've Been a Friend to Me – Sonya Cohen
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    Fave Music BOOKS:

  • Greil Marcus's What Nails It – The 2023 Windham-Campbell Prize Lecture – Why I Write
  • Moon Unit Zappa's Earth to Moon – A Memoir and a fun reading at Mountain View Studio with a performance of 'Valley Girl' by local teen band Mona Freaka that Moon seemed delighted by
  • Blue Navigator 12 – The World of Michael Hurley edited by Brendan Gleason
  • Terry Thal's My Greenwich Village – Dave, Bob and Me Terry was Dylan's first manager (and The Holy Modal Rounders too) and Dave Van Ronk's wife
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    Fave music FILMS 2024:

  • James Mangold's A Complete Unknown – at Upstate Rhinebeck
  • Jason Reitman's Saturday Night – at Upstate Rhinebeck
  • Bertrand Tavernier's Round Midnight – at Rosendale with Q&A with Maxine Gordon & Rick Lange
  • Gary Hustwits' ENO: A Generative Documentary at Upstate Saugerties
  • Sun Ra: Space Is The Place at Upstate Saugerties
  • Jon Scott Bennett's series The Peekskill Riots at Tompkins Corner
  • Curt Hahn's Lead Belly – The Man Who Invented Rock & Roll at Tompkins Corner (despite the claim in the subtitle not being discussed in the film at all)
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    Still going to too many concerts :

  • Gig of the year was the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra's performance of Lou Harrison's Concerto for Piano and Javanese Gamelan at St. Ann's Church, Brooklyn, under the direction of Jody Diamond, and with Adam Tendler, piano
  • The Wesleyan Gamelan Ensemble – Javanese Shadow Puppetry and Music – at the Katonah Village Library in May
  • Distant Roots, Local Flowers Gamelan concert & workshop at SUNY New Paltz College Hall with instructor Jody Diamond
  • The Ghost Train Orchestra playing the music of Moondog at The Town Hall with the Kronos Quartet, Karen Mantler, Joan as Police Woman, Marissa Nadler and David Byrne
  • Quinn's Monday Night Jazz sessions in Beacon are still great: Eric Person, Geoff Vidal, Robert Kopec, Nico Soffiato's Redshift Trio, Bob Meyer Circular Jazz Quartet, Tim Regusis, Neil 'Naill' Alexander, Jason Kao Kwang, Peyton Pleninger, Brian Ponton, Tyler Blanton, Nate Allen, Darius Beckford, Mr. Gone, Somewhat Social, the Altered Nine, Tony DePaolo's DEADYLAN and Electric Django, Steve Frieder, Kelly Green, Joe Fiedler, Andy Stack, and drummer and soundman extraordinaire Bryan Kopchak. And not forgetting the new Electronic + Experimental Music night Sleepwalking Through The Sun with Bob Lukomski's Buddha Glues Airplanes, Corset Lore, Jams Bond and wormlogo (a/k/a Craig Chin)
  • Great gigs at Lee Falco's The Falcon in Marlboro: Ed Palermo's Big Band, Geoff Vidal's Analog Jazz Orchestra (especially the "May the Fourth Be with You" show), Eric Person, the CMS Legacy Ensemble, and Los Gaiteros De San Jacinto
  • Eric Person's Cymbala playing the music of Ronald Shannon Jackson at UpFront in Port Jervis
  • Marshall Allen's Sun Ra Orchestra at Opus 40
  • And not forgetting Tara Johannessen's & Brian Farmer's Rail Trail Café in Rosendale: Sarah Underhill's Wild Swan Band, Spirit Brothers, Steve Gorn, Evan Pritchard, Amadou Diallo's M'Bollo, Julia Haines, Matoaka Little Eagle, Hogfiddle, Joakim Lartey's Shokoloko, Gamelan Sekar Raja!, and Levanta.
  • Jennifer Maidman's & Annie Whitehead's Simon's Dream playing the music of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra at The Local in Saugerties and at Maverick Concert Hall
  • Tributes to Peter Schickele and to Happy Traum at Maverick Concert Hall
  • CMS Improviser's Orchestra sessions at the Shirt Factory Kingston, now lead by Peter Apfelbaum with Ingrid Sertso.
  • Some great Elesium Furnace Works gigs at Cunneen-Hackett in Poughkeepsie: Joe McPhee with Strings, and H.A.R.R.I.E.T T.U.B.M.A.N the band
  • A couple of Music for Enophiles gigs at Bowery Electric, one gig opening for Peter Gordon's Love of Life Orchestra
  • Juma Sultan's Aboriginal Music Society at the Old Dutch Church, at Tubbys, and the Hudson River Maritime Center
  • Laraaji with Arji OceaNanda at the Old Dutch Church – Cosmic Joe meets Ambient Church
  • A couple of great Gary Lucas gigs: at Colony in April, and at the Ki Smith Gallery show of Factory videos with Barry Reynolds and Tammy Faye Starlite
  • Sheila Jordan with Cameron Brown at the Cold Spring Chapel Restoration
  • A great Steve Frieder gig at the BeanRunner Cafe in Peekskill – I think that half of the audience was his high school classmates
  • The Feelies acoustic covers show at Colony
  • Peter Stampfel's Atomic Meta-Pagans at Otto's Shrunken Head on 14th Street on the East Side
  • The Down Hill Strugglers at the Tompkins Corners Cultural Center Putnam Valley
  • Tim Eriksen also at Tompkins Corners
  • Wreckless Eric at Spotty Dog Books in Hudson
  • Gamelan Candra Kancana at Bard Hall (hey! it was a good concert and only one flub on my part!)
  • And not forgetting the Bard Georgian Choir at Bard Chapel
  • Judith Tulloch Trio, and Adam Falcon at Phil Ciganer's Town Crier in Beacon
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  • Some theater too: Heidi Schreck's What the Constitution Means To Me, and Antoine De Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince at Rosendale, Arm-of-the-Sea Theater at their Tidewater Center in Saugerties, The Burning of Kingston at the Stockade District, the Rosendale Street Festival, Saugerties's Garlic Festival, and the Beacon Sloop Club's Strawberry Festival, Corn Festival and Pumpkin Festival at Pete + Toshi Seeger Riverfront Park in Beacon

Finally, props to Mark Rosen and to Mark Zip for keeping POOP running!