#Big Swing Face

[rastronomicals]

1:22 AM EDT June 3, 2024:

Buddy Rich & Big Band - "Lament For Lester" From the album Big Swing Face (June 1967)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

[sinceileftyoublog]

Bruce Hornsby Continues on the Trail

Bruce Hornsby performs at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, 10/17/23

BY JORDAN MAINZER

At one point last Tuesday in Milwaukee, in response to one of many moments in the night fans shouted their requests at him, Bruce Hornsby joked, "I love the battle between disparate elements of my audience." Funny enough, I can't think of a statement that better defines the virtuosic pianist and singer-songwriter. That is, what's amazing about Hornsby is not just that he's traversed the worlds of rock, jazz, bluegrass, but that he has diehard fans of each of his endeavors. Go to a Hornsby show--even a solo one like at the Pabst Theater, sans defunct backers The Range or current band The Noisemakers--and you're bound to find both classical music appreciators and Deadheads alike.

In that sense, 1998's Spirit Trail, a storied and purposeful left-turn into modern rock after the jazz-focused Harbor Lights and Hot House, exemplifies Hornsby's multi-pronged approach. On Friday, Hornsby will release a 25th anniversary reissue of the record via Zappo Productions and Thirty Tigers. It contains a remastered version of the record, four "lost" songs from an unfinished record that was meant to be Spirit Trail's follow-up (shelved in favor of the almost piano-less Big Swing Face), and previously unreleased live performances of many of the album's songs. In Milwaukee, venue employees were handing out early CD copies of the reissue, the night a celebration of both Spirit Trail and Hornsby's discography as a whole.

Per usual, audience members requested songs both by shouting them out and via written submission, dropped off on stage prior to the show. As expected, they were all over the place, from Spirit Trail and even Lost Trail tunes to songs he simply refused to play because they were too boring or didn't age well, like "Dreamland" and "The Old Playground". Ever cheeky, at one point, Hornsby asked for requests and responded to the various audible shouts, "I haven't heard what I'm looking for yet." It was clear he wanted to give preference to Spirit Trail. He led off the night with "Preacher in the Ring Pt. I", his jaunty piano playing covering the song's ground in totality. You didn't even miss Sonny Emory's clacking drums from Live Trail, nor the dulcimer from both the studio and live versions of "Shadow Hand". Hornsby's finger exercises were simply a masterclass. He wrote standout track "Sneaking Up on Boo Radley" by learning to play over a left-hand ostinato, appropriating György Ligeti's "Etude 13: The Devil's Staircase", and nailed it live. It was a perfect Spirit Trail song to play without a band. His voice, too, was on point, wailing on the Black Crowes-inspired Lost Trail tune "Living in the Sunshine", doing justice to the studio version that indeed sounds like it could be sandwiched between the Southern rockers' "Remedy" and "Thorn in My Pride".

Yes, Hornsby's reach and influence goes beyond Spirit Trail. "The Show Goes On" has been featured in everything from Ron Howard's Backdraft to The Bear. During the set last Tuesday, he segued "Sidelines"--a duet from 2022's terrific 'Flicted with Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig--into his most famous song of all, "The Way It Is", during which he invited set opener/Bon Iver drummer S. Carey out to harmonize. That over the past decade Hornsby has fostered fruitful collaborations with the likes of Justin Vernon and Blake Mills is more evidence that he's as shaped by his contemporaries as his organic musical interests. So put yourself in his shoes in the mid-1990s, and you can hear his response to the sociopolitical and musical landscape of the past decade in many of the songs on Spirit Trail. He's asking himself tough questions about his own Southern heritage, challenging institutional racism on songs like "See the Same Way". The strummed mandolin of "Preacher in the Ring Pt. II" recalls Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road", "Resting Place" and "Pete & Manny" the radio-friendly heartland rock of Mellencamp and Petty. Yet, Hornsby's also dipping his toes in the worlds of electronica and hip hop, songs like the shuffling "Line in the Dust" written on a synth bed and with a drum machine beat like much of the second disc of Spirit Trail. And of course, the goofily titled "Sunflower Cat (Some Dour Cat) (Down With That)" is built around a sample of Jerry Garcia's riff on "China Cat Sunflower", as Hornsby was trying to explain the appeal of the Grateful Dead to producer Mike Mangini, a hip hop head. Mangini was so taken aback by the former band member's performance that he wrote a groove around the riff.

On fan favorite piano ballad and Spirit Trail highlight "Fortunate Son", Hornsby sings, "I've stared down the devil and had to look away." The song is ostensibly written from the point of view of a wheelchair-bound military veteran, lucky to be alive but maligning society's penchant to ascribe sacrificial glory to a life of physical limitations. I've always heard it, though, as the general antithesis to tough guy nihilism, whether action heroes or strong and silent singer-songwriters. Hornsby is the ultimate reflector, yet not quite ready to face mortality like many of the characters in his songs. After last Tuesday and 25 years of Spirit Trail, it certainly does seem like he's only just getting started.

[sun-e-chips]

Ur waterpark boys….they smile…so handsomely 🥺🥺

Careful complementing these goofs it goes straight to their head

[front-facing-pokemon]

[the-sneep-snoop]

you’ve heard of spider punk now get ready for spider of other musical subculture

[its-not-a-pen]

First day as an early-3rd-century warlord and I am fighting in the bloodiest civil war of my country’s history. Very few records were kept during this time and even fewer have survived, but I am one of the only people of my era to have an accurate, physical description that was verified by multiple sources. Was it because of my meteoric rise from sandal-weaver to king? My heroic exploits? My compassion for the downtrodden? No. it was because my contemporaries would NOT stop roasting me about my extremely big, stupid-looking ears.

[kakusu-shipping]

Wait actually while we're talking about Koro-Sensei's self inserts I wanna take a moment to go back to one of my favorite Koro-Sensei and I co-op S/Is that I've been thinking about recently for Someone I Think is Cool is putting the media on my Dashboard reasons; Soul Eater.

I only ever really watched the anime like maybe two times and neither was recent, but I always thought it was weird how BIG the Meister Academy was, and yet we only actively met like. Two teachers? One of whom was the Headmaster. So Koro-Sensei and I decided to fill in some Teacher Rolls!

He's the Weapon (a combat knife) and I'm the Meister, and we both have very unique (probably non-canon complaint) quirks. I'm a Meister who eats souls like a Weapon, he's a Weapon and a Witch's soul fused together, which has a lot of strange effects, one of which giving him the ability to split into multiple weapons at once, up to 8 to be exact, though they get a little weaker the more he is at a time.

Also, because he's a witch, there's a rumor that taking his soul would count to the Witch's soul required for graduation. Because of this, many of the students have tried their hand at killing him. Of course they've all failed so far. He thinks it's fun and welcomes the challenge, so long as no one disturbs classes to take a swing at him.

My S/I is not very expressive and usually has his eyes covered. Apparently a lot of the kids find him creepy due to how rarely he talks and the way he just stares off into space. Truthfully, he's just kind of a space cadet, he's trailed off in thought in the middle of his lectures multiple times. His natural smile is a very rare sight, and incredibly freaky.

Mostly the two of them exist because Koro and I both like the world of Soul Eater, but weren't interested enough in anyone to build off of them for S/Is... So we built off eachother!

[rastronomicals]

4:05 PM EDT October 26, 2024:

Buddy Rich & Big Band - "Wack Wack" From the album Big Swing Face (June 1967)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

[mejomonster]

Usually i dont have long hair so i guess its just hitting like a truck lately how femininely long hair is viewed, how much its used to identify women, how shallowly many people expect women To have long hair

And wowza does it make me realize 1 why my mom must've internally felt such a great need to make me grow my hair 2 makes me immediately wanna chop it the fuck off, because the people most pleased with long hair are the people id like to stay away from me 3 kind of irksome cause im growing my hair out, for the first time by choice in like 2 fucking decades, because i wanted cool long hair like guys in shows i admire

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Love rewatching Gravity Falls and remembering that the fanbase also forgets how much of a cunt Dipper can be at times

[ziracona]

Thinkin abt The Long Halloween film, (& spoilers for it), and remembered someone once complaining they made Gilda’s character bad in the film adaptation of The Long Halloween and a whole ‘she’s just evil because she can’t have kids anymore’ trope and like??? I have to kick in a door and say HUH??? What movie did you see?? Like the character is hella different from the comic yes, but 1, not necessarily in a bad way, a 2, that’s not her motive??? At all?? Like she’s not happy about that, but she’s not ever a ‘im inhuman now I can’t bear kids…’ The woman wants revenge because she experienced an insane trauma, and a betrayal, and the justice system is so broken that even as a lawyer herself, doing everything right, it left her empty and broken and abandoned too.

If anything, she’s just a strong foil for Harvey. She is never like ‘I can’t bear kids so now I must kill’— she’s like ‘I was in love and engaged to the man of my dreams and pregnant with our child, starting my career and family and unbelievably happy, and then his mafia father said ‘no’ to the union and child, and he just…abandoned me. For the family. I fought it, and he didn’t. He didn’t stay, he didn’t protect me, he didn’t love me. He didn’t even try. He let them cut my child out and kill it in front of me while I went kicking and screaming and fighting under the blade 8 months pregnant in a gang nonconsensual abortion, and left me literally hollowed out and alone to ‘recover’ from that, and nothing changed for anyone but me. I died that day, and no one faced ANY consequence. Not even guilt. I lost my ability to do my job, I lost my future, my hope, my ambition, my kid, my plans, my personality, my desire, my emotions, my being. I walked around as a shell. And when the justice system failed me, I found a lawyer who cared and was gunning for that mafia family, and married him, gave him more reason, but even he and Batman and the whole police force weren’t enough to stop them, so I decided to do it myself. I killed them, one holiday at a time, until everyone I wanted dead was fucking dead, and I got my justice.”

That’s an incredibly understandable, well done motive. What she did to Harvey specifically is fucked as hell, but she’s not a badly written lady. I love her comment about Harvey at the end that “We were so similar. Just. What was inside him hadn’t been ripped out yet.” Because she knows (and literally says) how broken and hollow what happened to her made her, and she can tell that what’s happened to him by the end of the story has done the same thing. She’s an incredibly cold and brutal character, but the bitch is well written.

​Like, she’s an excellent tragic film noir parallel for Harvey in the film. They go through almost the same trajectory. She is a hopeful young lawyer who believes in Justice who is betrayed and broken by the Roman’s people, and turns to extreme violence outside the system to get her justice when the ‘right way’ fails her. Harvey is literally the exact same thing, and scarred the exact same way, and changes to violence because of it. They both even say the very iconic ‘It had to be done’ close to the end of the film, in their last major scenes. Not echoing each other—neither hears the other. They just felt the same. The deep tragedy of the narrative is that in her search for justice, Gilda did to Harvey what was done to her—an utter betrayal and abandonment by beloved spouse. And he does not do to her what Alberto did. He takes the fall for her, even after the things she’s done, to him, because he loves her. The narrative repeats, the cycle of pain repeats, with the Roman at the heart of it, but with slight aberration because of the people involved this time. And if that ain’t film noir.

[rastronomicals]

11:13 PM EDT March 15, 2024:

Buddy Rich & Big Band - "The Beat Goes On" From the album Big Swing Face (June 1967)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

[forcebookish]

now these three years were funny and all but can i have my late twenties back

[ghostietea]

Chinobu cuddles >:3

[killuaisaprincess]

Fluff and Puff

��D-Do you think it’s cute?”

Killua fluffs out the edges of his plaid pink skirt, and Gon stares, maybe a little longer than he should.

[wingwisher]

half asleep watching youtube while taking my meds

I fucking love Amy Rose this girl would not recognize a face if it bit her. She's fucking noseblind and recognizes Sonic by smell I swear, running up to every male hedgehog and putting her face right up against his body to see if he's sonic or not. Prosopagnosic LEGEND with no sense of personal space. nobody be like her she's perfect in the worst way possible