I guess a measure that a song is a classic is its ability to be adapted to different genres. I love what King Curtis did with his sax in covering Frank Loesser's What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?, a pop standard that singers obviously love to sing. (Check out Ella Fitzgerald or Rufus Wainwright, for instance, taking a run at those notes.)    ..read more

For many years, my wife Martha has told me that if you really, really want to know what hot chocolate is, you have to have it in Madrid, with a plate of churros. Martha happens to make a mean cup of hot chocolate herself (we call it Spanish chocolate, although I always suspected that in Spain they would just call it "chocolate"), so my appetite has been interested in this for a long time.  I finally had the opportunity to go to Spain in 2018. In Madrid, we stayed with Martha's aunt Luci, and had fun wandering the streets, gazing at the art of Sorolla, Goya and Velasquez, and catching up w ..read more

I would never have put Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Yearsas a thematic cousin — let alone a direct link — to Tears for Fears' Mad World.  Yet, there it is. In this Dutch program, Roland Orzabal talks about the Paul Simon classic, and how its perspective is exactly what he was trying to express as someone who watched the world go by through a window.  And ... huh.  ..read more

I came across something I have not seen in a long time ... decades, actually. I think I saw this via the TV channel that ETV ran as a bit of an experiment (Channel 13, if memory serves) when cable was new.  This is a 1973 BBC recording of Mike Oldfield and Tubular Bells, except that it's live and Oldfield obviously is not multitracking himself as he did on the album of the same name.  There's a bit of a dream team playing the guitars. Seated next to Oldfield are (among others) Steve Hillage, Mick Taylor (still in the Rolling Stones at that point) and Fred Frith. This is Taylor and F ..read more

This song reminds me of the time we got married. The Go-Betweens were an Australian band, and Streets of Your Town was, I think, as close as they go to a hit around the world.  It's a timeless favourite of mine, and I listened to a lot this winter while I was recuperating on the couch, reading books, falling into naps. It sounds like it could have been recorded now or at multiple other periods of town.  It's a bright song, with — quite like a lot of British songs I like — a dark tone lyrically. It's a great legacy song for Grant McLennan, who died much too early of a heart attack, i ..read more

The late John Prine's Hello In There is one of his classics. This is a performance from 1990 of Michael Stype, Natalie Merchant and Billy Bragg.  ..read more

On Saturday, we walked down to the community mailbox and back. Which was a bit of a deal for yours truly; I have only walked as far as the curb with the garbage can since January.  I broke my right leg on Jan. 29, when I slipped on black ice while walking through MUN's campus on the way to work. I'm fine, although full recovery is still in the offing: my main work now is improving the ligaments in my foot and around my ankle. Patience!  Still, it was nice to walk a bit further. I'm looking forward to some more walking challenges in the days ahead.    ..read more