MAXABELSON'S SUPERGROOVY MUSIC VIDEO SPECTACULAR

#1119: randy newman - short people (1977)

in the 1970s, in the new yorker’s talk of the town section, ian frazier wrote the finest thing ever published in a major american magazine. it’s about randy newman, the best writer to ever live in the u.s.a. don’t believe me? here’s a taste: “`i never go out,’ randy newman said. `i sit in in my hotel room and read those guides to what’s going on. cincinnati this week–things like that. i say to myself, `this must be a great town.’ i watch television. i hate to watch myself on television, though. when the midnight special i did was on, i was in the other room, and my wife said, `come in and take a look. it’s not so bad.’ my posture was terrible. i had a fat back. i’d never realized i had a fat back before. my mouth looked like a torn pocket.’ actually, randy newman’s mouth looks more like a drain that his eyes and nose are going down.“

thanks to sarah edwards for the discovery. more randy is right here.

#1118: neil young - out on the weekend (live, 1971)

my little sister anna is an amazing person. she let me hold onto her banjo when she moved to uganda for a year to work on public health, but when she came home i gave it back. now she’s off in cameroon, but i forgot to ask for her banjo again. so poor me can’t lie down to play one of my sad, beautiful songs in my blue canadian shirt, smiling a grin wide enough to skim my mutton chop sideburns, out on the screened-in porch of the california ranch that’s named for one of my songs. (i can’t even sit in an amphitheater at the beach next to ben keith to play one of the painful masterpieces from on the beach.) but i can always live vicariously through neil young. he has a banjo–but he doesn’t have a sister like anna.

#1117: dwight yoakam - a thousand miles from nowhere (1993)

“what music do you listen to?” was a popular question when i was growing up, and “anything but country music” was a popular answer. by the time i was in my twenties, i realized that was nonsense – but i’d only talk about how much i worship old country music, american gods like hank williams and lefty frizzell and johnny cash and patsy cline and willie nelson and loretta lynn and merle haggard and gram parsons and emmylou harris. and then, to get the right message across, i’d add that i loved everything except country music from the 90s. how wrong! friends, don’t make the mistake i made. this sunday i saw dwight yoakam in concert and it was as cosmic, wonderful, pretty, funny and raucous as anything you could ever want. listen to dwight and make no apologies.

#1116: emahoy tsegué-maryam guèbrou - presentiment (2013)

“think about something else! was art tatum talented?” charles aznavour says to distract himself in my favorite line in my favorite movie. i think about that whenever i listen to the piano of the ethiopian nun emahoy tsegué-maryam guèbrou, because she sounds so much like tatum, maybe mixed with bach, south africa’s dollar brand, eric satie, and that album where the bassist charles mingus messes around on piano. i guess it’s because of that old sound, or the vintage looking cover of the album of hers i have, that i assumed she lived long ago. but i just found this clip of her playing in 2013, and realized she’s still alive: she turns 93 this year. 

#1115: aphex twin - cirklon3 (kолхозная mix) (2016)

i could read a million novels and biographies and news stories and comic books and memoirs and poems but never find a line as lovely as this one: “i live by the sea in a small town, it’s quiet and peaceful.” that’s from the director and star of aphex twin’s new video, a 12 year old dubliner named ryan wyer. he’s autistic, visually impaired, and such a fan of aphex twin that he put together homemade fan videos for aphex’s songs and posted them online. the videos are as eerie and beautiful as the music itself, which is saying something. when aphex twin saw them, he sent the 12-year-old his new album and told him to make a video for whichever track he liked the most. “we shed many tears of happiness for our very special, talented young man,” ryan’s mom told the writer dan redding in this lovely interview. “we always knew he would do something with music.”

#1114: lee “scratch” perry - i am the upsetter (1982)

i don’t believe in aliens, but i do think that every now and then an extraterrestrial genius flies in from outer space to grace human ears with something from another galaxy. jazz had sun ra, whose said his cosmic tones were for mental therapy and that his arkestra plowed pathways to unknown worlds. george clinton’s parliament/funkadelic came in on the mothership, david bowie was the man who fell to earth, and outkast’s atliens was almost as far out. 

but lee perry was from some other time-space continuum. here in the early 80s, after two decades of producing the finest reggae on the planet, just standing in front of a microphone in a studio, singing a song that was one of his first hits, he makes keith richards look like an accountant. it’s the soundtrack to a different universe.

#1113: clifton chenier - i’m comin’ home (live, 1973)

early june is the right time to listen to clifton chenier. if you’ve never heard it, his accordion sounds like a bubbling stew of dr. john’s piano, garth hudson’s organ and hank williams’ moan. it’s sweaty, eccentric and jubilant. “heading down to the lone star café,“ paul simon sang on graceland, "drink a little red wine in the shadow of clifton chenier.” he was name dropping a concert that my mom and dad swear they attended, too. 

a book of accordion transcriptions that i found opens with a small biography: chenier was born, it says, in june 1925, to a farmer father who played waltzes and two-steps at local house parties. besides playing music, clifton worked in rice fields, cotton fields, sugar-cane fields and oil refineries. one day, in a bar in houston, his wife’s second cousin, lighnin’ hopkins, introduced him to chris strachwitz, the owner of arhoolie records. 

"you see, in 1955 i used to play nothing but rock music on accordion,” chenier told strachwitz a long time later. “then i got so, i said `well there’s too many rock groups.’ i said, ‘i’m going to change this a little.’ that’s why i got it down to put french in the rock music. see how it goes.”

#1112: johnny cash - how high is the water, momma? (pete seeger’s rainbow quest, 1965)

“johnny cash recorded some of my songs early on, too, i met him in about ‘63, when he was all skin and bones. he traveled long. he traveled hard. but he was a hero of mine. i heard many of his songs growing up. i knew them better than i knew my own. big river, i walk the line. how high’s the water, mama? i wrote it’s alright ma (i’m only bleeding) with that song reverberating inside my head. i still ask, “how high is the water, mama?” - bob dylan

“hey all you kids out there! welcome to three feet high and rising! now, here’s what we do.” - de la soul

#1111 - guy clark - that old time feeling (1975)

guy clark wrote songs that were rough and rocky, full of mean tricks and hard ships and cheap strings and bad times on long highways. but those songs were very soft, too – what other word could you use for a man who wrote, “i wouldn’t trade a tree for the way i feel about you in the morning”? that’s from anyhow i love you – listen to the whole thing, because waylon jennings and emmylou harris’ harmonies edge up higher and higher with each chorus, until, at the end, they’re in the sky.

guy clark’s songs weren’t just hard and soft at the same time, they were sweet and essential. i don’t know what else to compare them to, the only other thing that comes to mind is bone marrow. i was just thinking about guy last week, and i’m sorry he didn’t live to see what i hope will be a new burst of love for the masterpiece music movie heartworn highways when it’s re-released next month. but that’s the way it goes. goodbye, guy.