My tweets of the last week:
What I Tweeted, 2012-03-11 Edition
My tweets of the last week:
Are the bears sleeping comfortably?
I know all too well the February Funk I typically descend into each year.
You might not know it too well, because it involves me becoming a total shut-in for the entire month, totally cutting off all ties with the outside world – including blog ties. It is a special, wintry listlessness that let’s no ambition escape its grasp. The only thing that will sate it is missed rehearsals and hours of playing video games. It may cause me to wear sweat pants for non-sweaty activities. It’s altogether terrifying.
This year I skipped it entirely.
Unlike an extra layer of blankets, you cannot kick of your accumulated fat when it gets too warm at night.
I’m still not sure how I accomplished that. Maybe it was the weather? Philly never endured any bitter cold this February and we skipped our seemingly-annual snowpocalypse. On the whole it was uncannily springlike. I wonder if hibernating animals were all terribly disoriented by it. Like, were all the bears all rolling around in their sleep, thinking, “I am too damned hot in all these layers of fat”?
Who knows?
Whatever the reason, the only funk to be found this February was from the awesome music I’ve been playing.
Okay, that’s a lie. I’ve never played a lick of funk music in my life, unless you count screaming James Brown back and forth with Gina between songs at rehearsal. GET ON THE GOOD FOOT.
The real way I stayed happy and healthy for the month was by vastly, vastly overcommitting – but, in a way that didn’t put the whole burden on my shoulders. That path leads to Funk. We doubled Arcati Crisis rehearsals. I began editing my book in earnest for Writer’s Club. I started a sort of tentative search committee around forming a new cover band, which I haven’t even talked about yet, along with other insane undiscussed developments – joining the board of a local org, editing a new blog, mixing two EPs for bands I love, planning to play and iPod DJ a wedding – the list goes on.
One thing all the activity has in common? No isolation. Even book editing has the end result of being in a room with other people, talking.
It worked! I made it through February alive and decidely unfunky. Suddenly, it is March and I’m free, free from the stultifying confines of the dastardly February Funk!
And I am booked every day and night for the next four weeks. Some days I don’t have enough time allotted for dinner or the possibility of needing to use the bathroom.
Hey, if that’s what it takes to skip February Funk, count me in. I’ll take March Mayhem, as long as it doesn’t lead to April Admittance-to-Hospital-due-to-Exhaustion.
#MusicMonday: “Drunk with the Thought of You” – Sheryl Crow
The mass music media seems to have lost the plot on covering Sheryl Crow after 2002’s sunny (if flimsy) C’Mon C’Mon failed to spawn the breakthrough singles of her previous efforts.
Pair that with a monster performances from her Kid Rock duet “Picture” and greatest hits (so far) cover of “The First Cut is the Deepest,” and I feel like everyone shut the book on Ms. Crow. “Yes, you are incredible singer, consistent songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and multiple Grammy winner – but you have a Greatest Hits out, you’re getting older now, and the Lance Armstrong romance is getting a little dull. I think that means we’ll put you on the ‘Adult Contemporary / No Real Coverage or Radio Play’ shelf.”
Did Sheryl Crow help with Wildflower, a sleepy, almost-all ballads follow-up? Maybe, but for one of the few career solo females to emerge from 90s rock you’d think she’d get their benefit of the doubt with every album. Sadly, women in music have to stay hot and poppy to stay on the cover of magazines. Being a tremendous songwriter doesn’t cut it.
Things don’t work that way in my world – it takes a lot for me to unsubscribe from an artist who I adored for over a decade. That is how I discovered that her 2008 record, Detours, was one of her strongest efforts and includes a pair of her best songs of all time – “Drunk with the Thought of You” and “Love Is All There Is.”
And – how freaking cool is this – there is a “making of” webisode on YouTube for “Drunk”!
(Always nice to see that big, famous songwriters argue and stumble over the same sorts of things that Gina and I do :)
No matter the writing partner, Crow has maintained an earthy, 70s AM radio vibe across a career of strong songwriting. On “Drunk with the Thought of You” she transcends that to head right to the source, finding Beatles-esque perfection in marrying a unifying lyrical theme to a simple chord structure. I’d hold this song up alongside “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.” It’s that good.
I find it hard to comprehend that a song this good will fade into obscurity as the B-side of a low-selling, mid-career LP. Every fan of good songwriting should know this song. I highly suggest that you drop $.99 on buying the album cut on iTunes or Amazon – and, remember, just because the media narrative on an artist has run dry doesn’t mean that they aren’t capable of producing the best work of their career.
What I Tweeted, 2012-03-04 Edition
My tweets of the last week: