Day 15: “A butterfly floats on the breeze of a sunlit day, as I feel this reality gently fade away. Riding on a thought to see where it’s from, gliding through a memory of a time yet to come”
Yasmin Williams – Urban Driftwood
"Drifting" feels like the vibe here, and there are sunshowers and dragonflies too!
Day 19: “Like Ma Bell, I’ve got the Ill Communication”
Big Star "#1 Record" (1972 Ardent; 2020 Craft reissue)
Chris Bell was one of the founding member of Big Star. He only participated on this first Big Star album, departing shortly after it originally failed to get any commercial success. He struggled with mental illness and addiction and eventually succumbed in a car accident in 1978. The record has since gathered massive critical acclaim, influenced numerous musicians and even served as the theme song for a hit television series. Ahead of its time and timeless.
Day 19: “Like Ma Bell, I’ve got the Ill Communication”
Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism
Ma Bell was at one point the world's biggest company and largest private telephone system.
Transatlanticism was recorded in part at Tiny Telephone in San Francisco. According to Wikipedia: A large portion of recording was also completed at Tiny Telephone Studios in San Francisco, where Walla (Chirs Walla, Death Cab's guitarist and producer) worked as an engineer. He credited that studio as "the fifth member of the band", noting that its isolated location allowed him to "get locked in there in the most beautiful kind of way."
Day 17: Free Day! Pick your own favorite Beastie Boys verse and play something related to that. Or play something the Beastie’s sampled.
"Now my name is MCA, I've got a license to kill
I think you know what time it is, it's time to get ill"
Bob Dylan – Infidels
A few days before MCA's passing I was involved in a poetry show themed after Licenced to Ill where a band learns and plays the album and every poet involved in the show gets a song as a prompt so the performance is interspersed between the music and the poetry - I'd been invited to be part of the band for this particular show and was, in fact, MCA. It was our sound tech from the show he sent me the news a few days later. As I'm sure most of us have, I've lost a lot of musicians I love through my lifetime, but never one whose work I'd just spent the previous month or two heavily immersed in and embodying. It still trips me up a bit more than a lot of the others.
For a night, my name was MCA.
"Paul Revere" is one of my all-time favourite beats and Beasties songs.
"License to Kill" features on one of my favourite and, I think most, underappreciated Dylan albums.