Friday, January 23, 2009

Musical Questions Saturday: Don’t Miss It!


The Musical Questions feature for this week will be posted on Saturday morning, not Sunday: & whatever you do this weekend, don’t miss this installment, because Carrie Bradley is a very exciting musician with lots of performing & composing experience. Carrie has been a part of the following bands: Ed’s Redeeming Qualities, the Breeders, The Buckets, 100 Watt Smile, John Wesley Harding, The Red House Painters, Love and Rockets, Granfaloon Bus, the Great Auk, & has also worked with Jonathan Richman. That’s quite a resumé, & it includes some of my favorite all-time bands/performers. Carrie is an extraordinarily talented violinist who brings a huge amount of melodic & rhythmic drive to her playing; she’s also a singer who really can convey emotion, a solid presence on the guitar, & a songwriter who can write songs that range from straight-on rockers to elegantly spare ballads—& any number of things somewhere in between. Her lyrics are literate without being at all precious—they’re witty & thoughtful, & always trying to get at something very real. So please tune in tomorrow morning for Carrie Bradley; among many other things, you’ll find out what Carrie has always wanted to ask Leonard Bernstein. As a preview, the video at the bottom of this post shows Carrie & Bernie Jungle performing Carrie’s song “Paradox” as The Great Auk—at least one more video to come tomorrow with the main Musical Questions post.

In other news: many thanks to Kat over at Poetikat's Invisible Keepsakes for her plug of the Reading Poetry series; I’ve been gratified by the response to this rather abstruse topic. & there are also some new blogs I’ve been enjoying that I’d like to plug in my own small way: Both The Lakewood Daily Snap & mouse medicine feature some really beautiful photographs; in addition you can find some delightful observations & pithy quotes there. Life at Willow Manor is a marvelous hodge podge—again, great pictures, some poetry (including today's feature: one of my all-time favorites by Wallace Stevens), & observations on topics as diverse as Presidential hair-dos (& how these play a role in the author’s own life) to a really great feature on etymology—one of my own favorite pastimes.

There are also some familiar faces showing up in new places: Jacqueline T Lynch of the very literate & thoughtful Another Old Movie Blog has started a new blog project: Tragedy & Comedy in New England, in which she focuses on the history of theater in that region. A project of hers that’s been up & running since 07, but which I only recently looked into is her New England Travels blog, which is really absorbing—just on recent posts, I learned about a town called Scotland, CT & about a Shaker settlement; & I got to reminisce about Boston Red Sox slugger Jim Rice, who was recently inducted into the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown. I’d recommend all of these blogs as entertaining & engaging internet reading (& viewing).

& speaking of entertaining reading (& listening) don’t miss Carrie Bradley’s Musical Questions tomorrow!

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