Oct 13

What Have I Put in My Ear?

If you’re not up tat the Southern Festival of Books, you are missing out.  Yesterday, I ended up having a long conversation about EVPs and whether you could cause a similar phenomenon with how funky radio signals have been known to act and at that moment a guy who does radio stuff in the Army walked by and explained exactly how it would indeed be possible and then he kind of grinned and wondered to himself if you could do that on purpose to freak your friends out.

Then today I picked up the music issue of the Oxford American.  I haven’t read any of it yet, but the CD is by far the best they’ve put out in years.  The only absolute miss is Daniel Johnston’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grievances,” though I could see it growing on me.

The things you cannot miss:

Eldridge Holmes doing “If I Were a Carpenter,” which starts out like you expect that song to and wanders into a soul-singer’s protest about the low wages of independant contractors.

Karen Dalton’s scary, creepy “Katie Cruel.”  This has a fiddle that will give you nightmares.

Betty Davis’s “Anti Love Song,” which is about all the reasons you should not fall in love with a man you almost cannot help but fuck.

And then, Betty Harris’s version of “Cry to Me.”  Wow.

Anyway, run out and get it.  And then let’s talk about just what the fuck “Katie Cruel” is about.

2 thoughts on “What Have I Put in My Ear?”

  1. I stopped over at the marxist booth and got into a very brief conversation (mostly a lecture) about jews in the .. world? I had asked about a book I thought looked interesting about “the jewish question” from a marxist point of view from some belgian opposition guy during WWII that was eventually executed by the nazis..

  2. Gahh!! I used to get the OA and have been pondering the notion of subscribing again just for the music issue.

    Durn it. The music issue was always the best. They don’t sell it up north here in the flim-flamming bookstores. I will have to reconsider my priorities and look into a resubscribe. Maybe I can go to the website and scarf up the issue in the meantime. Thanks for the tip.

    And so to bed.

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