NPR Music Taste: DORF?

Does NPR favor Dead Old Retro and Foreign Black Musicians? Read about it in Slate.

Rhythm Revue Dance Cruise

Saturday night I went on a dance cruise with Kathy, her boyfriend Charlie and our friend Julie Evans. Rhythm Revue with dj Felix Hernandez has events at Roseland all the time, classic R&B and soul, and it is really fun to go and dance. Dancing on the Hudson was even better. Some pictures.




That long low building in the middle on the left is BMCC. I have a window in my office now, but no Hudson River view.

Music Suggestions?

I am in a music rut, it is deeper than a rut, I need to listen to something other than what I started listening to in the 90's supplemented by opera recordings from the 30's. Any suggestions?

Code Monkey Like You

Molly was having a blue day a few weeks ago and I had the perfect fix for her, Code Monkey. Then I made one of my managers at work listen to it too and she then played it for her 3 yr old son, who apparently couldn't get enough Coulton and just kept dancing away to his songs all night. So check out Jonathan Coulton's website for yourself. He is a Brooklyn musician, singer-songwriter, and internet superstar and he recently undertook the challenge of writing and podcasting a song a week for a year. Not surprisingly, once you listen to him, he is good friends with John Hodgman. (They went to Yale together - it makes so much sense, even if I never met anyone half as fun during all those weekend trips out to CT to visit Irene.) You can see them on YouTube touring together to promote The Areas of My Expertise. I first heard Coulton on a knitting podcast called Cast On about a year ago. Who knew podcasts about knitting would become my new favorite source for music, particularly irony music?

Anyway, you should check him out. You can listen to all his music for free, and download quite a bit of it gratis. I highly recommend Skullcrusher Mountain and Code Monkey. Code Monkey is sure to draw you out of your funk. But explore other songs as well. His version of Baby Got Back is worth a listen and Kate, as a history geek, you should listen to his song about the presidents. Jody, you should look at the section of his website called You. Lots of people have sent in animated videos of his songs and he posts them there.

In summation, Jonathan Coulton, You Is Awesome!