Finally saw Killer of Sheep, adored it, and was struck by how important the music is to the film. Cursory research revealed that the reason it hadn’t been widely-released until last year was the prohibitive cost of clearing the songs that filmmaker Charles Burnett included in what was originally a (hugely ambitious, extremely low budget) student film. I am grateful that the film could be seen with the soundtrack intended for it because it would be severely lacking otherwise. That scene where the husband and wife are dancing to “this bitter earth” kind of broke my jaw, as they say; I watched it four times in a row.
All of that is to say I’ve collected the songs from the film (including two terrifyingly baritoney Paul Robeson songs that bookend this mix, and a track that played during the credits in the original cut but was left out of the most recent version because they couldn’t secure the rights–Dinah Washington’s “Unforgettable”) and here they are, more or less in order with a few tweaks by me. And in the interest of full disclosure, I couldn’t track down the Lowell Fulson song from the film (“It’s All Your Fault Baby”) so I picked another gem of his.
Here’s a link to the zip file. Enjoy, and I advise you to queue this shit up inmediatamente.
Tracklist:
1. Paul Robeson — The House I Live In
2. Cecil Gant — I Wonder
3. Elmore James — I Believe
4. Earth Wind and Fire — Reasons
5. Arthur Crudup — Mean Old Frisco Blues
6. Scott Joplin — Solace
7. Louis Armstrong — West End Blues
8. Dinah Washington — This BItter Earth
9. Rachmaninoff — Piano Concerto No. 4 In G Minor, Op. 40: II. Largo
10. Faye Adams — Shake a Hand
11. Little Walter — Mean Old World
12. Lowell Fulson — Crying Blues
13. Dinah Washington — Unforgettable
14. Paul Robeson — Curly Headed Baby
For posterity and giggles, I give you this quite good Craigslist post that originated in my ‘hood, Crown Heights.
who put the dead bird in my mailbox? - w4m
Date: 2008-04-20, 12:56PM EDT
a) how did you get into my mailbox in the first place, it is locked
b) did you kill the bird
c) it died horribly, that much was clear
d) you’re psycho
e) do I know you
f) if I do know you I don’t want to know you
g) if I don’t know you, what did I do to inspire you to put a dead bird in my mailbox
h) I don’t know how to disinfect a mailbox from a dead bird, I’m worried about diseases and have used five different kinds of cleaner but still feel like the bird’s still in there still and like my bills and my catalogues and my coupons have dead bird on them
i) it was a hummingbird, I looked it up - they don’t even live in New York - this is so f*ing psycho, I can’t believe this
j) are you the mailman?
k) I’m always nice to the mailman
l) the super didn’t care when I told him what happened
m) the neighbors didn’t care either
n) do you have some kind of problem with birds
o) don’t put anything else in my mailbox
p) unless it’s an apology
q) no, I take that back, I don’t even want an apology
r) what am I supposed to do with this bird - it’s in bubblewrap in a bag in a shoebox in the freezer right now - am I supposed to bury it - where? how? in a construction site where they’ve jackhammered through the concrete - where is a person supposed to bury things in this city?
s) I could drop it in the Gowanus canal, but that seems undignified
t) I could drop it in the ocean, but the ocean is so big and it is such a small bird
u) I could drop it in the toilet but it would probably get stuck
v) I hear this whirring around my ears every time I go to the mailbox and I’m pretty sure it’s ghost bird, and I’m all “it wasn’t me that killed you, bird!” but still the whirring doesn’t go away until I get to the stairwell
w) am I supposed to eat it - maybe you were trying to feed me - don’t you know I’m a vegetarian
x) if this was Ricky, I’m gonna beat your ass, mama told you stop bothering the zoo
y) if this was Gina, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, how many times I gotta say I’m sorry
z) I could drop it off the roof, maybe it will reincarnate while falling and I can start reading my mail again
Location: crown heights
It’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Almost universal happening that we wouldn’t know was universal if not for the internet: dogs holler when they hear the Who’s “Who Are You,” theme song for my parents’ favorite and the world’s worst television show. Check my specs.
Note ear-perk.
Actually seems to sing along with the “who who, who who” parts.
Most outraged of the bunch.
Doesn’t quite qualify, but he’s got the best voice and the biggest leather chair of them all.
Since we last spoke, the days have grown longer (it’s no longer nighttime when we leave work for which everyone is grateful) and I officially, arbitrarily grew older (graduating to a number that is divisible by twelve, which is very pleasing to my slightly-OCD brain). Also, I spent $25 on fancy cheeses and consumed most of it in a span of three days.
Two songs for listening to, one with a lengthy sidebar:
Folks would say “Daron got that dough…Daron Do.” That’s how I got the name. I used to get my suits tailor-made, one of a kind, like my rings. A player can’t have the same ring as someone else. Got my rings specially made with diamonds and stones. But in order to get yourself together you had to get away from all the fastness. I was driving around in a Rolls Royce, I was a fast young man. —Darondo
This Bay Area soul dude’s scattered 45s and demo reels from the early seventies are of the same milieu as Houston’s Kashmere Stage Band, or that Cambodian Rocks tape mentioned here a few weeks ago, or basically the entirety of the outstanding Eccentric Soul series—the music was jammed out and was stellar, perhaps several semi-high-profile performances followed (in Darondo’s case a stint opening for James Brown and a gig hosting a cable-access show [choice clip below] that seems like a bad Dave Chappelle sketch but is really just kind of great [nope, not exploitive]), the recordings were lost or abandoned, were eventually rediscovered in a toolshed, were coveted by mouth-breathers, and then re-released to the acclaim of NPR music commentators and the people who would’ve paid $400 for the thing on vinyl anyway.
Anyway, just listen to this song. It’s thee beste. This is a man who wears a personalized tooled-leather belt and RANGS. Do it for Darondo; do it for yourself.
Attached to the square envelope I received this morning from the impeccably dressed and unflappably posi Benedict O’Connor: a guide dog stamp, which I have since learned is part of a special-edition, action-packed collection of stamps that features working dogs.
Srsly, fuck Indian jewelry and crops of the Americas and the common buckeye. Look at ‘em go! Clockwise from top left: assistance dog CARRYING A LETTER IN HIS MAW, mountain rescue dog, police dog, guide dog, sheepdog, and drug-sniffing dog.
In my fit of glee, I also found these new stamps from Malta that commemorate door knockers. I picture the writer of the annunciatory press release repeatedly shaking his head slowly and saying “I don’t know, guys. Door knockers?” and then shuffling to his typewriter and pounding out this hellof diffident opener:
The humble “Habbata” (door knocker), a relatively small and insignificant item of furniture, has been chosen to feature on this set of four stamps.
Whatever dude. Gimme.
From left to right, the door knockers of the Maltese Museum of Fine Arts, the Department of Industrial and Employment Relations, Ministry of Finance, and the Museum of Archaeology.
Lament for the day: why oh why didn’t I buy a Whut It Dew shirt when I lived in Austin? I feel like at this point these t-shirts have been relegated to the back of every o.g.’s closet, along with all the mad-slanty eyebrowed snowmen, and as such it might be hard to get my hands on one (especially a women’s XS; that shit is 4XL or die). Fun fact: Carlos, the dude who designed and made a thing of the Whut It Dew t-shirt, came to my failure of a yard sale last summer with his adorable son and bought my one-inch button-maker for 75 doughnuts.Anyway, I was reminded of all this jang this morning on my commute when my iPod shuffled over to Chingo Bling’s “Taco Shop,” which is mostly an unfortunate series of fart jokes from the 2.0 version of Rapid Ric’s semi-legendary mixtape. Which brings me to the following list.
Things I learned from Chingo Bling:
Loads of financial advice, gleaned from his years at Trinity University earning his B.S. in Business Administration, and in his experience as the owner of a small empire of Chingo Blingery—beyond his record deal with Asylum, he slangs, among other things, bobble-head dolls, hot sauce (“It don’t burn… it just tickles on the way out!”), t-shirts he claims to have designed himself and likely did (don’t miss the Oilers logo strapped with an AK-47), and giant tamales from a roach coach with his face painted on the side. His adbice includes “get rid of your pinche credit cards!!!” and this solid gold nugget to use when you check your credit score: “the gringos at the credit companies dont share the records so you gota contact them and make sure your dad who has the same name isnt bringin your score down with all his debts.”
You can bring a kangaroo on a plane, and at least one person has.
Said kangaroos are transported in burlap sacks. Head-first.
He has a beautiful soul and is a complex man who is inordinately worried about the North American Union:
after the cho i like to go to my room and throw money up in the air makin sure it lands all over me, i do this over and over again till i fall asleep and dream about monies and diamenz
So, kind of drunk at work. My boss took me to what ended up being a $200 lunch to sort of celebrate that I am his assistant and I am the best at that particular thing and he is glad that I don’t mind when he goes to Mexico for a week leaving me to do his job and that sometimes my job is only slightly better than gingerly sifting through the sand at Rockaway Beach to get the syringes before they sink into the soft soles of the children’s feet.
Anyway, two glasses of wine at lunch, and a cheese plate for dessert.
Here are a few things that I have purchased recently that have drastically improved my life.
Clockwise from lower left: let’s not talk about how much these limited edition Chanel eyeglasses cost me; an addition to my old-timey clipart collection: a paperback reprint of the 1895 Montgomery Ward & Co. catalogue, complete with the most genius copywriting about milk jugs evar; a heavy-duty fabric depiller (it’s the size of a hairdryer); a comp of Cambodian psych music dubbed from a cassette found in the back of a cab; my first pair of waterproof shoes, from the Lady N collection of Hunter boots, complete with $20 “flashes.”
A note from Lady Northampton about these boots:
Years ago I unearthed a pair of leather and canvas Newmarket boots, originally made in 1910, in an old chest at Castle Ashby near Northampton. They were much admired whether I wore them shooting, riding or walking along Bond Street. Inspired by this, I decided to launch a range of my own known as The Lady Northampton Boot. Photographed by Patrick Lichfield for Harpers and Queen, they soon became a great success. 2005 sees the launch of a new collection, The Lady N by Hunters of Dumfries, Scotland the original producers. This contemporary boot combines all the original characteristics–elegantly tailored and stylish. I hope you will have much enjoyment wearing them.
