Heading to Austin...

Long time reader, friend for thirty-nine years, and someone who makes my year every time I get to see him [1], wrote suggesting I quit using the image of the crashed monoplane when I write about traveling, and instead use the cover of the Special Beat Service album by the English Beat. And he's right. As it happens, I and The English Beat will both be in Austin, Texas tomorrow, and we will be in the same room at Antone's. Oddly enough, it was Kev who introduced me to The English Beat, and their final album, Special Beat Service. I became a fan, and followed the careers of their offshoots and motherlodes, The Specials, General Public, and Fine Young Cannibals. And now it's all come full circle. And Kev, God bless his soul, said I should post the SBS album cover because "they all arrive safely as you always do."



Who'd have ever thought I would fly all around this world? Or that I might become discombobulated when I hadn't flown anywhere for a couple of weeks? I remember back to a time when an 84 hour bus or train trip was preferable to boarding a 'plane for a four hour flight.

I am still sorting this all out. Somehow I have moments when I miss being petrified about flying, and wonder if I haven't just been hypnotized by the Great Corporate Snake?

Anyhow, I will endeavor to write more from Austin in the next few days...and, of course, give a show report on my happy reunion with The English Beat.

Love,

Jack (boarding the 'plane for San Francisco and on to Austin in five hours)

[1] Like I did this June, when I reconnected with NYC and had a ball with Kev and our familial entourage stalking our old haunts, and new ones, in the East Village, Times Square, The Upper West Side, and Brooklyn, and marveling about the changes in us, and New York, and the world.
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Happy Thanksgiving -- The Band cover Marvin Gaye's Don't Do It at their final show

31 years ago this Thanksgiving, The Band played the last time on stage. I always think about the band on Thanksgiving because of that show and the movie.

Bill Graham put the show together (along with Thanksgiving dinner for the attendees). They brought along a few friends like Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Emmy Lou Harris, Neil Diamond, Muddy Waters, Neil Young, and others. Don't Do It was their encore. Martin Scorsese used it over the opening credits of the film The Last Waltz released in 1977. It is a great movie of an epic event by a great band (R.I.P. Rick Danko and Richard Manuel). Buy the DVD--on sale at Amazon for a paltry $7.99!


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I haven't heard it yet, but I am happy to know that Joni Mitchell released a new album yesterday called Shine. I won't get to hear it for a couple of days, unless there is a CD store in Whistler, British Columbia.

Today, also, I believe Herbie Hancock released a tribute album to Joni. I'm looking forward to that one too.

As it turns out, the day of this record's release I am in her home state, about fifty miles from her house on Vancouver Island (where my daughter also lives). Like I said, I won't hear the record until I get back to stateside. I am not much of a digital music buyer. I have to hit the brick and mortar shop and have a CD to hold in my hands. Then, I just play a CD once...when I digitize it. Anyhow, here's to Joni. The advance on this album i that it's very good.


The tracks of Shine:

"One Week Last Summer"
"This Place"
"If I Had a Heart" "If I Had a Heart, I'd Cry" is a reaction to the state of the environment and what Mitchell called the current "holy war." In February 2007, The New York Times described the song as "one of the most haunting melodies she has ever written." Of the impetus that inspired her to write the song, Mitchell explained, "My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species. I can't cry about it. In a way I'm inoculated. I've suffered this pain for so long. …The West has packed the whole world on a runaway train. We are on the road to extincting ourselves as a species."
"Hana"
"Bad Dreams are Good" "Bad Dreams Are Good" was inspired by a comment Mitchell's grandson made at the age of three: "Bad dreams are good, in the great plan." In a March 2007 BBC2 radio interview with Amanda Ghost, the singer jokingly said she'd promised to "cut him in" on the song's profits.
"Big Yellow Taxi" In March 2007, The Guardian reported that Shine will feature a "new version" of Joni's 1970 environmentally-themed hit single.
"Night of the Iguana"
"Strong and Wrong"
"Shine" Toronto Globe and Mail described this song as "a lush lullaby for the soul."[
"If" This song, which will be the last on the album,[8] is based on the poem of the same name by Rudyard Kipling. The jazz-inflected piece features Herbie Hancock playing piano.
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