FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

I really am sorry about the massive downtime (and lower-than-usual quality) that's been going around this fucking blog right now; the short version is that I've been frantically scrambling to find a new job ever since I started marking every hate-filled day I spend at my current job on my arm with an X-Acto knife (they literally have me sharing an office with a guy who spends all day playing self-composed New Age music, I shit you not), and as such most of my recent writing time has been spent trying to pitch myself to ANYONE ELSE ON THIS EARTH. Consequently the blog has taken something of a backseat lately; for this, I apologize again, although I'm really shooting myself in the foot way more than any of y'all.

So my idea, then, was to upload a few songs that I've been caning to death lately without description; I have every intent of getting wasted and shooting my mouth off about them later, but we'll see. I will, however, absolutely vouch for the quality of both songs - these are both unqualified masterpieces, not simply amusing little talking point:

Fairport Convention, "Come All Ye" - In spite of the fact that the Fairport Convention's Liege & Leaf has basically been essential, near-daily listening since I picked it up a week or so ago, I have to say that I'm a little nervous about my ability to actually do right by it in a way that would justify my brusque decision to hand out its opening (and best) track to the world at large; this is because it is quite possibly the most sincerely respectful album currently occupying space in my CD racks, and me and musical sincerity kinda decided to try things apart from each other a long time ago. It's pretty safe to say that if I'd been aware of the premise behind Liege & Leaf - with the exception of "Come All Ye", all the songs are traditional English folk songs, real no-foolin' plowing-fields and maidens-fair shit, adapted for modern instruments - you could have piled the beSt F0lX @lbUm 3V3RRR!!!!11!1!! hype twice as high and I'd still never have gone near it. As it turned out of course, once again my all-consuming thickheadedness turned out to be my savior; I'd practically listen to an album drawn from old episodes of This American Life if it had arrangements like this, to say nothing of Sandy Denny waking me the fuck up to the vocal charms of Sandy Denny in a hurry.

That being said, it's probably not an accident that my favorite song is the only modern one on the album; all that music sure is purty, but as with any sweet, nurturing, world-easing narcotic, you've got to apply it properly to get the full effect. Most of the songs on Liege & Leaf, after all, aren't written to involve the audience; I tend to find "Matty Groves", literally a nine-minute story song about a woman who seduces a guy and whose husband comes home and so on (goddamned folkies), more typical of the album than the rolling, beaming singalong of "Come All Ye", and as legitimately substantial as Liege & Leaf is, it may be all the poorer for it. Lord knows that huge choral swell right where the chorus starts pretty much trumps anything else on the album; I was handing over money practically on its strength alone. (click here to buy the Fairport Convention's Liege & Leaf from Amazon.co.uk)

Fela Kuti, "Roforofo Fight" - Here is how pathetically ill-equipped I am to ever talk about Fela Kuti from any standpoint of authority, no matter how provincial:

1. I first heard of Fela Kuti in Spin Magazine, the musical equivalent of finding out about Vladimir Nabokov by way of Highlights.
2. I find it both enormously easy and enormously useful to write off large chunks of Fela Kuti's catalogue - most notably the chunks including everything between the beginning and the end of it - as all sounding very same-y, and being that I still haven't worked through Brian Eno's whole same-y catalogue yet (and then comes Phillip Glass!), well, here we are.
3. As a rule, improvisational muso modalities tend to bore me nearly to the point of anger. I'm well aware that this is, to put it mildly, retarded, but fuck it - when you can't even pop a musical half-staff for Jimi Hendrix or George Clinton or Ornette Coleman, it's worth considering whether your head might just have been wired wrong.

So along comes Roforofo Fight, courtesy of a freshly wig-pushed-back Joe Friesen, to validate everything I ever knew about Fela Kuti down to the letter. Because it is same-y as fuck, and it is obvious why Spin would have been freaking out over it half a decade ago, and it is A Glorious Celebration Of The Musician As Author Of His Own World or some shit - and above all else, it really is fun to listen to. I mean, obviously there's That Famous Trumpet Hook, but really you could follow "Roforofo Fight" the whole way through just tracking the warmth of those keys or all the joyful little variances in any of the eleventy billion rhythm lines going at once. Just great, fun stuff - the kind of thing that makes for a great go-to when you don't want to open the morning listening to "Autobahn". (click here to buy Fela Kuti's Roforofo Fight/The Fela Singles from Amazon.com)