NEWS
January 20, 2005.
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Hyperactivity of Paul Westerberg continues. After a handful of albums in past two years, recently his name is attached to three new movies. Cameron Crowe hired him to write music for his new film Elizabethtown. Recall, previously Westerberg wrote score for Crowe's legendary film Singles in 1993. Also, Westerberg is busy composing songs for the animated movie Open Season which is a big new production at Sony Pictures. Finally, new James Burke movie Aurora Borealis takes place in Minneapolis and features a female character who moves to the town to stalk Westerberg. Although Westerberg declined to appear in Aurora Borealis, he borrowed his clothes to actor who impersonates him in the movie. And all our local listeners should mark their calendars, Westerberg is coming to New Orleans March 10 this year. Little Lighthouse will have some tickets for the lucky ones. Paul's site is here and we wrote about his former band here.
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Cordell Jackson, one of the true rock'n'roll pioneers, influential songwriter and guitarist and founder of Moon Records in Memphis died on October 15th last year in age of 81. Her song She's The One That's Got It is one of the cult singles on the early rock'n'roll. Initial version by Allen Page inspired many generations, but true glory to the song was brought in mid eighties by Tav Falco who made the song and its author internationally recognized. Cordell continued playing guitar and making art until the end of her life. Her site that sells her art is not yet updated about her departure. http://www.cordelljackson.com/
new
album==>
R. Stevie Moore - Conscientious Objector
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Ever since
late seventies, R. Stevie Moore constantly puts out albums every now and
then. This one came out recently and it counts as one hundred and fifty
first album in his career if my count is right. In the meantime, Moore published
three more albums. It's really hard to keep track of them, but he sells
them as a 20cd box set on his site.
Only seventeen of his albums are considered 'official' albums, though and
Conscientious Objector is not one of them, but only Moore knows what's
what in his discography. It would be wrong to assume that he just puts out
every sound he makes. Conscientious Objector really is a collection
of all R Stevie's recent musical experiments, but it is a carefully collected
one. About 70 minutes are more or less conventional songs and the rest of
this of almost 160 minutes of this double cd is various sound games and
vignettes that fill the space in between. They add up to unique drama of
this release and help the chaos as those 'more conventional' songs are deliberately
left unfinished. In fact, his disability to write a hit song Moore very
well described in one of his best known songs Why Can't I Write A Hit
long time ago. As he puts it, he's not writing songs for bosses of the
record companies. And that's the key, he's not writing them really for anyone,
he's even less interested in wrapping them up like some overproduced product.
He makes these songs, pushes the recording button and before the stop is
pushed back he almost rejects them and goes on for another musical adventure.
Now this all wouldn't matter at all if Moore didn't have talent for making
truly engaging and humorous tunes in tradition of Brian Wilson and Andy
Partridge (who appears with a phonecall on this album) and he hadn't deep
knowledge and appreciation for pop music from Elvis (his father was session
musician for The King) to The Residents. In any case, welcome to the rarely
explored territory of planet Moore. If these are your first steps, spend
some time downloading at www.rsteviemoore.com
and check out two interviews (here
and here)
with Moore.
<==rewind
Hellcats - Cherry Mansions, Hoodoo Train
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