D'Antoni!

Overlooked in my flurry of music posts lately was the very excellent news out of MSG - Mike D'Antoni will be leading the Knickerbockers next year. I've been a great admirer of D'Antoni's Phoenix teams - they played a style that was always entertaining, and when they were hitting on all cylinders, captivating. I don't think D'Antoni makes the Knicks a contender anytime soon, nor do most people, I gather. But he will make them play a brand of basketball that won't be sleep inducing. He'll also probably make better use of David Lee and Renaldo Balkman. I am, for the first time in a long time, excited to see some Knicks basketball.

Now, the downside is that for D'Antoni's system to work, it needs the right pieces, most of which the Knicks don't have (I count Lee, Balkman, Marbury, Robinson, and maybe Quentin Richardson, who used to play for D'Antoni but has a bad back, as fitting in). Moreover, D'Antoni never got the Suns to the finals - yeah, they came close, and maybe the Suns front office is to blame for making some bad decisions, but the other great offensive guru, Don Nelson, has never won a title either.

Here's an interesting question: if you could have a coach who would guarantee entertaining basketball, with some success but no title, or a coach who produced boring but efficient winners, which would you pick? Would you rather be the Suns or the Spurs?

The Cardigans - If There is a Chance

I love this song so much and it slipped into my head today. The Cardigans are horribly underrated in America, mostly because the song everyone knows them for (Lovefool - "love me, love me, say that you love me") isn't a particularly great example of their work, especially over their last few albums. If There is a Chance is a b-side from Long Gone Before Daylight, which is one of my all-time favorite records. It's a simple little ballad, but Nina's voice is just so incredibly haunting - breathy but powerful. I love the idea of the chorus - the song is guy leaves girl, girl very sad, but the chorus is about how if she could dance with him one more time, she'd keep playing records until... I dunno, the end of time or until he falls in love with her again. The image of a continuously spinning record, matched to the swirling quality of the song really makes the song - it's a song about slow dancing that I always kinda want to slow dance to.

If there is a chance, just one in this world,
That we'll ever dance, again as it turns
If there is a chance, if there is a way,
There's one record left, that you havn't heared.
And i'll keep it spinnin.

Happy Mother's Day from Mr. T

Whiskeytown

As a longtime Ryan Adams fan who never got fully into his former band Whiskeytown, the recent Deluxe Edition release of Stranger's Almanac has proved a terrific revelation. Whiskeytown's work always felt uneven to me, for some reason. But Stranger's Alamanac is a near perfect album back to front. Part of my lack of love for Whiskeytown was ignorance - I always loved the songs like Houses on the Hill, Everything I Do (which I heard in Blue Smoke, weirdly), Dancing with the Women at the Bar, 16 Days, and Avenues. But there are songs that fill the gaps here that I'd heard but never fully appreciated - particularly the very pretty Somebody Remembers the Rose and the haunting Not Home Anymore. Highest recommendation to both the original album and the deluxe edition, which includes a live performance and a ton of killer demos (including a cover of the Fleetwood Mac song Dreams).

For whatever reason, the only part of the Whiskeytown Austin City Limits performance I could find on youtube was 16 Days. Great show.

Judd Apatow + John Mayer = Brilliant

New short video from Judd Apatow about the making of a John Mayer song. Always nice to see Johnny has a good sense of humor about himself.

Ryan Adams - Ya'll Busted Up Jesus Something Awful

Video of the day from Ryan Adams' always entertaining blog. Lots of fun posts today with new paintings and the like over there, too - www.dradamsfilms.com.

It's about Jesus, and cats with lasers coming out of their eyes. Ya know, normal stuff.


WEREWOLPH- "Ya'll Busted Up Jesus Somethin Awful" from Wilson Wolf on Vimeo.

Ben Folds

Been listening to a lot of Ben Folds today - he's been touring a bit lately, playing some new songs. Some seem catchy (Effington, Hiroshima) but I'm not feeling much lyrically. Here's an older one, All U Can Eat, which is one of those neat little Ben Folds-y deconstructions of America. First line is pretty great.

Damien Rice - Rootless Tree (piano version)

Possibly my favorite use of the word "fuck" in song.

Ryan Adams

Last week was the three year anniversary of the release of Cold Roses, which is among Ryan Adams' magnum opuses - an 80 minute double album packed with songs both instantly lovable and which grew more impressive over many listens. For reasons unknown to me, I've been thinking about the song Now That You're Gone a lot lately; it's one of those songs that comes to me sometimes when I haven't heard it in a long time. What struck me in re-watching the Austin City Limits performance from the fall of '05 is the restraint in the arrangement - the song could be a fist-pumping ballad with some more dramatic drumming and maybe a louder electric guitar. The chorus can sustain it - I definitely throw an arm in the air when singing it - but Ryan keeps it subdued and the song is better off for it.



As a bonus, another one that's been on my mind lately - Ryan and the Cards' cover of Alice in Chains' Down in a Hole. I was there the first time they busted it out, and it was a stunning experience - first that they were actually covering Alice in Chains, and second how well it worked. Let's just say Ryan can emotionally take on Jerry Cantrell's lyrics.