This week has been so "meh." Overall there's been a definite lack of what I like to call "inspirado" and I just have not been totally on fire these last couple of days at all. 

That said, there have been a scant few sources of this aforementioned inspirado lately: 


I have been listening to the new Joanna Newsom EP, Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band, an awful lot. It's gorgeous, of course, esp her harmonies with Neal Morgan on "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie." That's my favorite thing at the moment.

  ... And there has been so much going on on my favorite show, The View, this week too, with Rosie announcing that, sadly, she is not coming back next season and Alec Baldwin trying to explain his heinous behavior towards his daughter. So much drama! 

One thing that has been the source of inspirado during this weirdo week has been the new Mavis Staples record, We'll Never Turn Back. How can anyone possibly not simply adore Mavis Staples? I feel like this album is even more powerful than some of her older ones.

All the songs are protest songs, and she wraps her gospel voice all around them and makes them so moving all over again. It was produced, seemingly like most things, by Ry Cooder. Mavis's voice will never grow old. The cd is supposed to be inspiring and I would definitely say it achieves its goal. When I hear Mavis Staples killing it like that, I want to go back for the billionth time to another one of my favorite things, The Band's film The Last Waltz to watch the Staples Singers perform "The Weight."  It's a perfect song, to me, the writing, the performance...the inspirado...

Helloooooooo everyone, I just read online that Miss Joanna Newsom will be opening for Miss Bjork on her upcoming tour for two whole dates:

05-15 Denver, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheatre
05-19 Mountain View, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre

Now doesn't that seem like a fantastic match? 

I am so excited to hear Joanna's new ep that is coming out next Tuesday on Drag City. It's gonna be called Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band and will have one new song, "Colleen," recorded just after her tour ended in December at The Record Plant in Sausalito. The Plant is a fabled recording studio where Fleetwood Mac's Rumours was laid down, along with sessions by just about anyone who's anyone, including Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Michael Bolton, etc etc. All the greats. Anyway, I am waiting with most eager anticipation for this latest release, and will give a full report as soon as I hear it. Oh yeah, it's also gonna have some live tracks from the Ys tour and including her crackerjack band of Miss Katie Hardin, Mr Neal Morgan, Mr Kevin Barker, Mr Ryan Francesconi, and Mr Dan Cantrell. Seeing the Ys songs performed live was one of the most moving experiences I have ever had at a show-- this band cooks!  And so do the songs. Hopefully everyone's heard Joanna's Ys by now; if not, you are coo coo-- go check it out immediately!  Bjork's new album Volta comes out May 7.  All of this gives me so much to look forward to!

Reason 2,472 that I love Amoeba: I wake up, I read the paper  (online, of course) and always find some neato thing!

Today, this is the patch of online journalism that jolts me - somewhere between a good cup of coffee and shock-paddles de resuscitare, I find this description of a man shopping at Amoeba Music, the one on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California:

from the calendar section of the LA Times:

'... These [albums] were not of mere musical interest to Boyd. He produced them. And throughout the store there's plenty more of his handiwork: influential albums by innovative English folk-rock group Fairport Convention and its most famous alums, Richard Thompson and the late Sandy Denny; the idiosyncratic work of Scottish psychedelic-folk avatars the Incredible String Band; and the singular sounds from the too-brief life of singer-songwriter Nick Drake.

Although that music stands on its own merits, the value is even more evident in the presence here of many younger acts claiming influence from Boyd's catalog, from R.E.M. (which recruited him to produce the 1985 "Fables of the Reconstruction" album) to the currently acclaimed crop of "freak-folk" figures such as Devendra Banhart and (seen to your left) Joanna Newsom, who talk of music associated with Boyd in hushed, reverent tones."


... so, ,maybe Miss Ess, purveyor of music lit world-wide, can blog to us all one day and tell us what she thought of this man's new book: