top 10 wrrld music CDs @ WXDU (week ending 11/28/04)

Boomerang :: Daara J
Whendo :: Gangbé Brass Band
Darker Roots :: Version City Rockers
Rough Guide to Manu Dibango :: Manu Dibango
Ce Soir Lá :: Lo'Jo
Sincerely Hot :: Domenico + 2
Loteria de la Cumbia Lounge :: Charanga Cakewalk
African Underground, vol. 1: Hip-Hop Senegal :: various
Save the World :: Enzo Avitabile & Bottari
Inspiracion Espiracion :: Gotan Project

Had an annoying email exchange with a label rep today. I wrote to see if they were planning to send XDU a copy of a new CD I'd heard about. Actually the station had received a sampler disc with a few songs from the album. So the rep wrote back and said, well, yes, if I'd rather have the whole album, of course they'd send it. But the sampler was created especially for radio stations and they'd appreciate it if we'd go ahead and start playing. All well and good (they're just doing their job after all) but it just bugs the piss outta me. Frankly, I never like to playlist those advance sampler CDs. Of course the label likes them cos they result in the singles being played (over-played). But XDU's mission is to educate and entertain, which I think is much more well served by exposing both the DJs and the audience to the rest of the CD, to the songs that might not get played on other stations. I should probably point out, as if it wasn't obvious to those who know anything about college radio or the music biz, that this rep works for one of the few major labels I have any contact with. Small labels (and small promo folks) are almost always more helpful and aware of how things work at college radio.
The upside news for this week is that XDU's got enough of a budget to go out and buy some CDs. Woohoo! I'm hoping we'll be able to get a bunch of good stuff on Soul Jazz -- inc. Sandoz, Bell, NYC 70s disco-funk-soul, British 70s disco-funk-soul, Jamaican 70s disco-funk-soul-reggae, and Konk(!!!) -- and also to fill in some of the holes in our set of Ethiopiques CDs.

I was over at XDU tonight to drop off some CDs for playlist. No new mail so I was looking thru the bins of CDs that no one has wanted to review. And found the Backwards Life 0f Romeo, a new CD by Cowboys International. Which probably means nothing to most of any of y'all reading this but I think it's pretty fuckin cool. Cowboys International released one album back in 1979, which contained the early new wave dance club standard "Thrash." (Keith Levene and Terry Chimes among the co-conspirators) And that was it for CI. After I started DJing at XDU I tracked down the station's copy of Original Sin and I've played "Thrash" a few times over the years. Did a bit of searching on the internets tonight and discovered that, yes, it's the same Cowboys International. And, yes, 25 years after Original Sin, Ken Lockie has re-started Cowboys International and recorded a second album. Another thing I learned was that Lockie went on to be half (along with Stuart Arbright) of Dominatrix, one of my all-time faves from the early 80s disco-no disco days in NYC. And he also produced the Death Comet Crew stuff.
Here's the Trouser Press page on Cowboys International. And here's a link to the official site.
Oh yeah and the new CD is a bit of alright...

Spent an excessive chunk o' time tonight rating movies on Netflix. It was beyond excessive and into obsessive, actually. One of the things I found interesting was how having only 5 choices (1 thru 5 stars) forces you to compare and equate movies that you might not otherwise have ever thought of at the same time, por ejemplo Unzipped, Shoah, Iron Monkey and the Dish.

Here's another random thought from today: if you buy an Xmas tree at the end of November, isn't it likely to be a twig in the midst of a pile of pine needles by the time it's 12/25? And aren't you just sick of looking at it by the time it's Xmas anyway? Probably so, which is why I'm seeing them out at the curb on the 26th. Now I'm not nearly so militant as I used to be (when I was a kid my family wouldn't even BUY a tree until Xmas Eve). But I'm just not ready to succumb to enforced jollity until... oh I dunno, it might be nice if it was December or something.

Sometimes the day goes just like you expect. And that was yesterday. Sleeping. Cheezy parade. Yardwork. Dinner at Four Square. Which was excellent. A few small service lapses, all pretty much attributable to them being at the end of a long busy holiday. But the food was straight up wonderful (even better than last time, I think).
Last night after we got back I was watching Iron Chef. They were showing one of the Turkey Battles, this one with Michiba vs. a hotel chef from Osaka who does some cooking for the Yakult Swallows. And I noticed, as in the later Turkey Battle with Morimoto, that -- damn, the Japanese like some rare turkey. Both Michiba and the challenger served dishes that looked cooked about as much as a seared tuna. Do they not have salmonella in Japan? Remind me, should I ever end up in Japan not to order any poultry dishes. Cos I'd hate to look like a philistine and send it back, but someone drops a plate of raw-in-the-middle turkey down in front of me and back to the kitchen is where it's going.
Tried to watch American Movie tonight but frankly it was too fucking depressing. I remember reading reviews that complained that the movie was making fun of Chris Borchardt. I didn't feel like they were encouraging me to laugh at him. But everything that was going on was just so awful -- especially when the old uncle shows up and they start hitting him up for money. Perhaps if we'd stuck it out it'd have gotten less depressing and godawful. But I was losing the will to live...
So instead we watched Before Sunrise. Glorious! Very interesting seeing this movie after having seen Waking Life. Not only do the characters re-appear but some of their conversation in WL echoes moments from Before Sunrise. Oh yeah, and the pinball machine.

Get your holiday on with a lovely maple pumpkin pie. Sure the photo's overexposed and the crust shrank on one side a bit. But so what... it's pie!

Or if you prefer yr dessert-y goodness a bit more hi-tek, check out the latest in Xmas pie technology

If you're the kind of person who can't eat dessert first, the House of Dioxin Test Kitchens** would like to suggest: Cornish Game Hen w/ Grilled Cheese Sandwich Stuffing

**note: recipe has not been tested and HoDTK assumes no liability for ruined meals or disgruntled relatives

A surprisingly low trauma day at work today. Hopefully that means that all (or most) of our shit was covered. The days before the major eating holidays always have the potential to be quite fraught. Having survived a trip to retail-food-land last night (and forgotten to get something for dinner tonite), I was figuring we'd eat out somewhere tonight. But, I lucked out and acquired an extra bonus free pie crust from the Pastry team. And, to doubleplus the good, I discovered the Lost City of Kroger. I guess because it's brand new and no one's realized it's there yet, the Kroger out on 15-501 (in my namesake shopping plaza, behind the Home Depot) was seriously undercrowded. Oh joy. Got makings for yummy carnitas. And ingredients for a pumpkin pie, which is baking as I type this.

Tomorrow promises sleeping in, cheezy parades on TV, maybe some yardwork in the afternoon, and a fine meal to wrap up the day.

happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

top 10 wrrld music CDs @ WXDU (week ending 11/21/04)

Save the World :: Enzo Avitabile & Bottari
Loteria de la Cumbia Lounge :: Charanga Cakewalk
Rough Guide to Manu Dibango :: Manu Dibango
Quelqu'un M'a Dit :: Carla Bruni
Margie's :: Conjunto Los Pochos
Fiebre :: Radio Tarifa
Oil & Water :: Stephen Kent
Sincerely Hot :: Domenico + 2
Inspiracion Espiracion :: Gotan Project
African Underground, vol. 1: Hip-Hop Senegal :: various

Saw somewhere (Fark, maybe) that there's another director attached to the still-in-development-hell film version of Watchmen. Out: Darren Aronofsky (Pi). In: Paul Greengrass (Bourne Supremacy). Which would seem to indicate a trend towards a more slick H-wood style movie. (can you say League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?) On another level, I'm not sure it matters. There won't be much left of the original Alan Moore text/story by the time all is said and done. I think the ending is pretty much unfilmable, post 9/11/01. If a movie studio or production company is gonna throw checks around, I'm glad Moore's getting a taste. The fact that the movie ends up sucking does not dimish my fondness for the original comix. And if maybe a few more people might buy his books, or the rights money allows him the freedom/time to write something new, well that's an up side as well.

Thanks to BWV for pointing me towards the new Klezmatics CD, on which they cover Hannukah songs written by Woody Guthrie. I'm hoping to be able to snag a copy for XDU and get it on the playlist before Hannukah ends this year. I love the Klezmatics. Had the chance to see them at the Knitting Factory in NYC back in 96 and they put on a hellafied show.

One of the few things required of an XDU DJ is to read two PSAs per hour. When I was at the station the other night I was pleased to see the holiday announcement from Save the Manatee Club. Cos (1) who doesn't like manatees? (2) I'm pretty sure the Save the Manatee PSA was the one being read when I caused a fellow DJ to break up on the air and cuss into a live mic. I'd been joking around with the next DJ & got him laughing so much that he couldn't get thru the manatee PSA. After stopping and starting a couple of times he finally lost it completely and said "oh shit" (possibly "oh fuck"). Good times...

Lots o' good new CDs crossing my desk recently, including Handsome Boy Modeling School, Githead, Daara J and Lo'Jo. Also several less than impressive offerings including a set of reggae Xmas songs, a Putumayo comp called Blues Lounge (a few good cuts but mostly sounds like Moby's Play run thru the blanderizer), and a reggae tribute to Bob Dylan (don't ask... please)

Lesson 1: do not go into work on Saturday, even if you're halfway there, even if it's only to drop off something. Especially do not go into work on the Saturday before Thanksgiving if you work in the food biz. First you'll get sucked into the turmoil that you thought you left behind yesterday. Plus you'll get two more calls from work after you get home.
sub-lesson (1a): cleaning out the gutters on your house is, in fact, preferable to answering calls from work on your day off

This may be old news to the cartoonish cognoscenti but I stumbled across Super Milk Chan on Cartoon Network. Bent massive! I'm left to wonder if it makes any more sense to the original Japanese audience. All I can say is, if it does, then Japan is an even weirder place than I would ever have imagined.

While driving home tonight, I heard a story on local public radio station WUNC about Ipas, a local non-profit working on women's health issues around the world, withdrawing underwriting support for WUNC because the station had balked at Ipas' use of the phrase "reproductive rights" in their underwriting announcement.
Here's the press release
Here's the online petition
And here's WUNC's position (utter craven doublespeak)

Feh! to WUNC. They've dropped shows I listened to (inc. "My Word"/"My Music", "Shickele Mix", "Whaddaya Know?", and "Afropop Worldwide"). They've never aired "le Show." Still, I was almost feeling bad after the recent pledge drive cos even tho I listen way less than I used to, I do still tune in while driving every once in a while. And I was thinking I should pony up with some $$. (no doubt some sort of Pavlovian guilt-response.) The only good thing I can say about WUNC is that at least they covered the story. Not much more than reporting what had happened but still better than pretending nothing had happened. But I'm quite glad I didn't give those fuckers any of my money. I think instead I'll donate something to Ipas.

If you're looking for a local radio station to support, XDU's benefit show is tomorrow night at 8.

There's nothing like advance notice (and this is nothing like that). I'll be on the air tonight, 8-10pm. 88.7fm if you're local. Or streaming from the XDU website. As usual, I have mostly no idea what I'm going to play. Well, I know what I'm going to open with: "US Out of My Pants" by Luna. Probably all downhill from there but who knows...

To go along with the recent post by LBR about "Bad Ass Coffee" here's proof that while Americans may have raised shocked blue-nosery to an art form, we don't have a monopoly on it. Sure it's almost 30 years on, but the Damned are causing consternation & uproar in Cambridge over plans to have them turn on the city's Xmas lights. It's heart-warming, in a way, to realize that there'll always be a bourgeousie to epater.

"Antipope" lyrics after the jump.

Long day. Went from work to South Pointy where I parked myself at a table in Barnes & Noble and free wrote for about a half-hour. Worked thru a couple of exercises that Sharon had suggested last week and jotted down some things that I'd seen during the week and meant to write about but never got around to. Had dinner at the Q Shack there. Good stuff, of course. Had the sausage and it was nice and smoky. Yumm. And from there went straight to class. We started working as a group to create a story. Well, tonight we really only got as far as the beginnings of sketching out a protagonist. But it was interesting to watch the collaborative process and the creative process at work. And now I'm home. The Ricardo Montalban film club is convening in the living room but I'm too fried to socialize so I'm in the study blogging and listening to music (iTunes on random; Jolly Mukherjee just at the moment)

One thing I wanted to mention from the weekend -- spent a goodly chunk of Saturday afternoon surfing the internets for info on death, suicide, hanging, etc. Amazing the stuff you can find. At one point I ended up on the pages for some museum in Australia or New Zealand that had some exhibit on death. Somewhere along the way I saw a mention that one of the things you could get the death penalty for in England in the early 19th century was attempted suicide. The mind boggles. Probably I was spending way too much time on all that searching. The story I'm working on for WriMo has a suicide by hanging as a small but crucial plot element. Driving back from XDU I heard a story on "This American Life" about the people that clean up crime scenes. Which pointed out to me that I'd incorrectly written in my story that the police had cleaned up the scene after the event. So going back in to fix that got me wondering if there was anything else I'd gotten wrong about a suicide by hanging. Probably I should have just kept writing and left accuracy for December. But I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I'm not going to be able to write 50K words by the end of November. As long as I keep writing, I'll consider the month a success no matter what my word count at the end is.

top 10 wrrld music CDs @ WXDU (week ending 11/14/04)

Sincerely Hot :: Domenico + 2
Oil & Water :: Stephen Kent
Save the World :: Enzo Avitabile & Bottari
Loteria de la Cumbia Lounge :: Charanga Cakewalk
African Underground, vol. 1: Hip-Hop Senegal :: various
Rough Guide to Manu Dibango :: Manu Dibango
Inspiracion Espiracion :: Gotan Project
Tassamoukan :: Issa Bagayogo
Sunshine Barato :: Mosquitos
Quelqu'un M'a Dit :: Carla Bruni

I seem to have wandered thru my weekend without actually getting much accomplished. I was planning to clean out the gutters and install screens on them. At least it's not supposed to rain at all this week. Did do the radio thing yesterday, which was fun, as always. Even got a phone call asking about the track I'd played from Cuisine Non-Stop. And, coincidentally enough, I'd pulled Yat Kha's Yenisei Punk planning to play something from that only to receive Bill's online request for a Yat Kha track from their earlier CD, Dalai Beldiri.

Last night was the Evil Genius throwdown at la casa del Rick! Viva & Courtney. I totally forgot about the costume component, but there were a few inspired efforts, including but not limited to Phil Spector, General Zod, El Seed, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow man. Lots of good fun what is funny. I made the scene with Lisa (Sarah decided to stay in and sew). The local blogerati was there, along with many of XDU's finest. And a cast of thousands. Well, maybe not but it was pretty packed in. I called it a night around midnite-30

Tonight I tried my hand at making chicken fesenjan, with fairly okay results. I mean, it's not a patch on the one they serve at Parveneh in Chapel Hill, but it was a respectable first effort. Nuts weren't ground quite fine enough and I need to figure out some way to get rid of the pomegranate seeds. I'm thinking either crush and strain the juice before adding. Or run the finished sauce thru the blender instead of the food processor.

Other than forgetting to pull "Trevira Trousers" and forgetting to play "Pants Make You Smarter" my main regret about last week's mystery show is that I didn't have time to track down (or create) the soundbite from All You Need is Cash where Iris Mountbatten is talking about Leggy's primary reason for becoming the Rutles manager.
Here, by overwhelming popular demand, is the tracklist...

I'm running the show for Mondo Mundo (the radio programme) today on XDU. Two hours o' wrrld musical goodness, 1.00-3.00pm EST. 88.7fm if yr local, website if yr not. I was thinking of doing a more Euro and Celtic focused show. But I'm holding a buncha new CDs that haven't made it thru the review process and I'll probably build at least an hour around them. Some reggae from Version City Rockers, dub from Lena (includes MC Black Sifichi, who's worked with the Black Dog), Senegalese hiphop from Daara J, the new Putumayo comp, Music from the Chocolate Lands (aside: aren't they running out of foods at Putumayo? they haven't done sugar yet. Or rice. But I think it's time for some meat themes, and I'm totally waiting for someone to jump on LBR's suggestion of "Music from Goat-Eating Lands"), live CDs from Lo'Jo and Gangbe Brass Band, and a new CD-single of Rachid Taha covering "Rock the Casbah."

Had dinner tonight at Federal (as blogged locally of late) and it was indeed damn fine. I had the burger and could only have enjoyed it more if they'd backed off a bit on the mustard, which was hot enough that it tended to overwhelm everything else. And Stella Artois on tap, which took me way back to the 80s. I think one of the bars I used to frequent in NYC had Stella on tap. Altho I could be wrong...
After dinner we watched Once Upon a Time in Mexico which kicked ass and took names. And also, it's part 2 of the series of DVDs with cooking bonus features. While maybe not quite as good as the Bend It Like Beckham extra on alu ghobi (because it lacks Indian grannies), Rodriguez's feature on puerco pilbil picks up much bonus points for having a recipe that's: (1) made with pork; (2) something I actually want to learn to cook (alu ghobi is fine but I don't like it enough to want to spend the time required to cook it -- I'd rather just go to a restaurant)

top 10 wrrld music CDs @ WXDU (week ending 10/31/04)

African Underground, vol. 1: Hip-Hop Senegal :: various
Rough Guide to Manu Dibango :: Manu Dibango
Sunshine Barato :: Mosquitos
Quelqu'un M'a Dit :: Carla Bruni
Inspiracion :: Gotan Project
Fiebre :: Radio Tarifa
Margie's :: Conjunto Los Pochos
The Sweet Soul of Kenya :: David Nzomo Trio
Rough Guide to Mambo :: various
Sincerely Hot :: Domenico + 2

WriMo update: was up until around 2am last night and with that and a couple of long sessions over the weekend, I find myself up around 12K. That's not a pace that'll get me to 50K in a month. But I'm sort of okay with that. I'm trying to stay focused on the process, to just sit down and write some every night. When I think about the scope of the larger project... well, that gets overwhelming and makes me want to take a nap or watch TV for 5 hours. But if I just focus on doing, on writing, not even so much on moving the story along so much as just getting something "down on paper" (I'm writing on the iceBook so I don't know what the slang-y phrase for that is). And at that level it's been really interesting. Just over the last couple days, actual plot has started to emerge. Things happening to the characters, things for them to react against and stuff. Last night in class, Sharon (the instructor) said something that really helped a lot -- just a reminder that it's not necessary to write in a linear process. So I was able to come home and get a nice scene down that happens days later in the story line. Cos that's what I'd thought of, but if I'd tried to sit there and figure out everything that has to happen over four days to get to that scene, well it just wouldn't have happened. I'd have gotten more sleep but I feel better having gotten the writing done instead.

I don't think I've raved about the new Nancy Sinatra CD. Yes, that Nancy Sinatra. These boots are made for walkin' and etc. It's not a novel approach at this point, pairing a musical icon with younger artists/fans. But it still works when it feels like the guests actually want to be there (Tom Jones' Reload and Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose, por ejemplo). Morrissey, Jon Spencer, Calexico... what's not to love? Even Bono and the Edge whip up a nice Frank-style saloon song for Nancy. The Thurston Moore number, tho... Godawful. Which surprised me since he was collaborating with Lydia Lunch around the same time she was checking in with her awesome cover of "Some Velvet Morning" (with Rowland S. Howard).

And Lisa mentioned Survival Research Laboratories recently. I was pleased to see that they're still going strong. 25 years of machines and mayhem. They don't seem to travel to the east coast much but hopefully I'll get the chance to see them some day.

Picked up this swanky book a few weeks ago. Loads o' cool pictures of vintage Vegas signs, graphics and such.

Beaucoup pics from this year's Houston art car parade. There's a shot of me & Sarah at the Art Car Ball. And a shot of UMJ with the bubble machine running during the parade.

As if that isn't enough (and don't you think it oughta be?) -- vampire watermelon!!

Very thrilled to spot the Tonka truck in the parking lot while I was on my way to Bean Traders this morning. Absolutely this is my favorite thing I've seen driving around lately. In second place (and not a very close second either) would be the guy who was out with his leaf-blower around 10.30pm on election night. Drove past him while on our way home. My guess is that he was too stressed out by the returns and felt the need to do something. Either that or he was drunk...

Pants Control ended up okay. A bit high stress right at the start but things calmed down and we ended up with more music than we could play in an hour. Which is always better than running out and having to stretch the talksets or play the same song twice. Some time in December (either the 12th or 19th) I'm doing another mystery show, "But Enough About Me..." (songs of ego-worship).

WriMo update: not good. Election stress knocked me off my game completely and I only got about 6500 words for the week. Still it's been worth doing. Several plot turns have cropped up while I was writing. Characters going off in ways I didn't expect them to. That to me is always a sign that things are cooking, when stuff like that starts to happen.

This just in: everybody scream real loud!

There are so many things I could or should be doing right now. So many in fact that I'm having the classic contrarian reaction of sitting around all morning, drinking coffee, eating toast, and websurfing.

But before I move on to the linky-link luv, it's time to plug away: I'll be co-hosting the special bonus mystery show with Sarah on XDU tomorrow night. Sunday 11/7, 10.30-11.30pm EST. 88.7fm if yr local, website if yr not. The title of the show is: Pants Control. It'll be a funpacked hour of songs about pants. Tune in why doncha...

Here's some Muppet fun for yr Saturday morning. There's something endearingly BBC about an article that starts out talking about Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and ends up discussing Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Or if you don't mind a trip to the temples of die-yuppie-scum consumerism, you could pick up this little item and give yr TV (or computer) a serious Forbidden Planet vibe.

Finally, James Lileks has a new book, which should do for 70s design what Gallery of Regrettable Food did for 50s cuisine. Sure, on one level it's all about cheap snark. But what am I, if not about the cheap snark? Especially when it's well-written cheap snark. (I'd actually stopped reading Lileks' blog earlier in the fall. I just couldn't take the politics. Somehow I find it disturbing that someone roughly in my age group, with whom I share a lot of pop-culture obsessions can be so completely in the opposite political direction. Oh well... I'm still planning to get the book)

Just in case y'all were wondering, if you're at the end of a long stressful week, one of the last things you wanna do is find yourself stuck in a 90 min. traffic jam. About the only mitigating factor was that I'd actually already been to work and clocked in so's I could deliver a special order to the Durham store. At least I was getting paid to sit in my car on 54 and contemplate the random thought: just what would the John Williams music for Star Wars sound like if Gustav Holst had never written the Planets?

This just in: Alan Keyes is still totally bugfuck

And here, just for Sarah, is the Mini XXL

One last election thingy (found this via Scrubbles).
It's a county-level map of the US, which puts a different spin on the whole red v. blue framing device.

I'll be on the air tomorrow night, 8-10pm. 88.7fm if you're local. Or streaming from the XDU website. A couple hours of anger mis-management and free floating musical snark. I am my own portable blue state and so are you. They might have won but our music is funkier, our beer is colder, our coffee is hotter and our men and women are exceptionally better looking.

(note: this is my 100th post...)

UPDATE:: Ended up at the station tonight, emergency subbing from 8.40 to 10, and spun all the topical mood music I'd thought of. So tomorrow's show will be less thematic than originally planned. Altho I may play some more Leonard Cohen. Or even the same Leonard Cohen. Like I told Sta Salsera earlier, he'd sound world-weary and cynical singing a nursery rhyme.

"our dignity exists regardless of their fear" - Andrew Sullivan
"as for popping vicodin and drinking for four years: well, it worked the first time" - Wonkette

this just in: my head asplode...
y'know, while I was driving from my class to the returns-watching party last night, there was a moment when I actually thought/hoped that I'd walk in and it'd already be over. That whimsical notion was pretty much crushed outta me over the next hour or so and at some point it became this unbearably slow process of watching the dirt applied one shovelful at a time.
One of the few high points of the night: Stephen Colbert on the Daily Show. He opened by refusing to answer any of Stewart's questions about how things were going, insisting that he had his pajamas and was there for the long haul. And closed with an hilarious rant about how, in days ahead people would call on Americans to put aside their differences and come together... and we should reject that, because we were now an anger-based economy. Hopefully someone will be streaming that sometime over the next day or so.

Trying very hard not to think about the election that's going on all around me. Work took up enough of my brain to make getting thru the day okay. And tonight I've got my first continuing ed. class, called Accessing Creativity. That might help. Or I might be totally distracted and unable to focus on anything that's said.
WriMo report: got about 2400 words written so far. Off to a decent start. Altho much of it may be semi-discardable throat clearing I think a character that could drive a decent sub-plot may have presented himself last night

Finished reading Sinatra! the Song is You: A Singer's Art by Will Friedwald (Da Capo, 1997). Fantastic book. If you're a fan of Sinatra's music at all (and, again, if you're not, who the hell are you and who let you in?) this is a key read. As the subtitle indicates, Friedwald focuses on the music and the singing and not on the "lifestyle" stuff. The framing device is Sinatra's relationship with his arrangers. So lotsa interesting stories about Nelson Riddle, Billy May, Axel Stordahl, and the other arrangers who worked with Sinatra. Moves mostly in chronological order thru Sinatra's career, starting in the early years and continuing on to his years with Tommy Dorsey and Harry James. Breaks out of strict chronology to follow (esp) the Riddle/Sinatra and May/Sinatra team up into the 70s.
Fun fact I never knew: both Stordahl and Riddle were born on Staten Island.
One thing I'd hoped to learn but didn't: there was no discussion of the way Sinatra sometimes held consonants when singing, Best example that comes to mind is "bore me terifffffically too" in "I Get a Kick Out of You." I've always wondered if that was a Sinatra innovation, or did lots of other singers do the same kind of thing.
Reason it took me so long to finish this book (other than the fact that I'm a slow reader): chronological structure of book means that ending chapters are talking about Sinatra in decline. Also Sinatra during the "rock era" which, really, some editor should just have told Friedwald he needed to drop all mentions of rock music from this book. I was stunned to get to the author info blurb at the end of the book and realize that Friedwald is a year younger than me. He's so clueless on rock I figured him for a pre-Boomer type. Instead now I must wonder how someone my age got such a 2×4 wedged up his rectum. I like Sinatra. I also like Pet Shop Boys, Sex Pistols, Mouse on Mars, blahblah etc... I don't thnk that's anything all that exceptional. I feel like Friedwald has fetishized jazz singing in an over-compensating sorta way. (/ dimestore psychoanalysis). I'm hard-pressed to imagine what he'd make of Khaled or Bjork or Yat Kha. But as usual I digress. I think the examples of rock tone-deafness that most annoyed me: claiming that the Ramones took their name from producer Phil Ramone. Bzzz! wrong! Dee Dee cribbed it from a stage name McCartney used (citation here). And making fun of Bono's name. I mean, I agree with Friedwald that the Bono "duet" may be the absolute nadir of Sinatra's career. But making fun of Bono because "he doesn't even have a name" ?!? That's the kinda shit you'd expect from someone's dad trying to bust the chops of their teenage kid about the rock and/or roll. When it comes to music of the post-Sinatra era, Friedwald clearly and massively does not get it.
Still, although the last 60 or so pages are kinda weak they don't drag down the book.
Again I say, a must read for anyone interested in Sinatra the singer.