Be Good Tanyas

The Be Good Tanyas
16" x 20"
oil on canvas

Three weeks to go until completion. The Top 100 2010 now has 85 songs and 80 paintings I consider done. The date for the countdown and exhibition is set for March 12th. It will be at Skylab, 57 East Gay Street, Columbus, Ohio. It'll be a party. The Be Good Tanyas are back in the list for the first time since 2006 when The Littlest Birds claimed a #40 spot. Jolie Holland used to be a part of the Be Good Tanyas, she sang the The Littlest Birds and wrote it too. After six years of a whole lot of Jolie Holland songs and paintings, she has not made it into the list this year. But there is time: February 3rd she plays in town and I sure will be there. She plays on a big black guitar that has a signature of T-Model Ford on it. I'm sure she'll bring it. I'll keep you posted. The Be good Tanyas this year, without Jolie Holland, score with a cover of Townes Van Zandt's Waiting Around to Die, the original's already high up the list.

Marie Osmond
11" x 5"
oil on wood, 2011

I'm a busy, busy painter so I don't have much to write today. I'll finish up with this brand new painting of Marie Osmond that I thought I should share. It's meant as a follow up of the chapter last week called Marie Osmond. Just one little interesting anecdote to add to that story: Several times during the painting of Marie Osmond on old friend named Sunny Taylor came to mind. She happened to e-mail me a few days ago and I replied that I was just thinking about her and why. I wrote her it had nothing to do with the fact that both the Osmonds and her hail from Utah. "Funny" she replied back, "I used to be neighbors with Donny."

(I am not so sure it had nothing to do with it.)

Beth Orton Wearing a Blue Sweater

Beth Orton
16" x 20"
oil on canvas, 2011

Featured in the last top 10 is the song Conceived by Beth Orton. The song was already on its way up the list and resides now at #5. I posted the official video for it on my Facebook page. It's a very happy video with lots of creatures in it. There are five Beth Orton songs in the Top 100, most by one single musician since Cat Power a few years ago. The painting with the blue sweater is the fourth painting of her this year, the fifth one is on its way. All songs come from the CD Comfort of Strangers which actually is the only CD I have, the only one I know. Before this Top 100 year I never even knew any Beth Orton songs but currently she's appearing in all the lists I keep. Because of the additional points for Conceived, Beth Orton climbed to #1 in the list for musicians in 2010. Comfort of Strangers to #3 in the list of albums (highest by single performer) and entered the all time list of albums (a top 50 that I keep for a decade now.) Conceived entered the all time list of recordings (that's a top 500, counted since 1983) and Beth Orton herself just made it in the 200 that keeps track of the musicians.

Top 100 2010: top 10 #60

1. Sergey Ryabtsev - Improvisation    —Ryabtsev is a Russian born violinist for the band Gogol Bordella. Last week I helped install the exhibition Crossing the Boulevard at the Urban Art Space in Columbus, Ohio and the violin tune is found on a CD that comes with the catalog.
2. Be Good Tanyas - Waiting Around to Die   —Cover of the Townes Van Zandt classic that is found back at #10 in the Top 100. I also posted the video for this on Facebook.
3. Beth Orton - Conceived    —(see above)
4. Atman - The End of Philosophy    —Question: What do you do when you have a Polish co-worker? Answer: You bring in your Polish CDs from your collection.
5. M.I.A. - Born Free    —And that propels this to number one in the Top 100 2010! 
6. Beth Orton - Shopping Trolley    —After Conceived this is the second track from Comfort of Strangers for which a video was made. Very happy and funny once again.
7. Alela Diane - Dry Grass and Shadows   —There were three Alela Diane song in the Top 100 2009 last year, all from the CD To Be Still. With these four points Dry Grass and Shadows is the sole survivor.
8. Yael Naim - New Soul    —Again a very happy song. It's one of Maria's favorites.
9. Elizabeth Cotton - Freight Train    —A classic and long time favorite of mine.
10. Cat Power - Wonderwall    —From the John Peel Sessions, a really great radio performance from quite a few years ago. I'm waiting on a her new album for a while now. Waiting... waiting... waiting...

Marie Osmond

Marie Osmond
7" x 5"
pen on paper, 2011

Had I had the foresight to start making top 10s when I was ten years old, I certainly would've had the Osmond Brothers in a Top 100. I was crazy about Crazy Horses; I was playing air guitar and mimicking the brothers' horse imitations. English did I speak not. But I started making top 10s at 18 and never gave the brothers a single point ever. Let alone their little sis Marie.
But then comes April, I'm 45 now, and all of a sudden the name Marie Osmond pops up. And now when I'm going through some songs that almost have enough points gathered to be in this Top 100 I play her Hugo Ball recital once more and decide to reward this recording from a Ripley's Believe it or Not broadcast with a spot between the Top100 elite.
Not committing to painting yet I was searching for pictures of Marie Osmond when I suddenly recognized Sarah Palin in her image. I don't know if I made this association because of similar features or gestures, poses, or just a spark in the eye, but I could not separate the two anymore. I made a number of sketches in my drawing book, some more Palinesque than others. Those with Palin in mind seem to be more vibrant, a more sexualized celebrity type image than some others. I probably do a small painting informed by one of those sketches. Until then I'll make do with this one little sketch of the sober portrait variety, it's the best one of the set I just made.  In it I don't recognize Sarah Palin at all but rather her brother Donny. I do not recall, but I must have seen The Donny and Marie Show on TV quite a few times. I was 10.

Romania

Cover for Folk Music of Rumania
(from a photograph by Bela Bartok)
20" x 16"
oil on canvas, 2011

Same record, same size canvas, and as with the previous blog earlier today painted from a photograph by Bela Bartok. The painting represents again a field recording made in Romania. Whereas the previous one dealt with a lively dance music style called Hora, the style here is called  a Bocet, not so lively it's in fact the opposite, it's a lament for the dead. In Romania, as in many other countries/cultures, part of funerary rites contain the hiring of a professional mourning singer. I have mentioned, but not yet dwelt on in these pages, my obsession with cry-singing, or keening or wailing. I collect recordings of such practices and every year I find one or two new ones and write about it in my commentaries. The commentary always involves this one story, allow me to quote from my book Top 100 2009:

    About fifteen years ago I heard in a museum exhibit a sound recording of a banshee. At least I thought I did but as it turns out there is no such thing as a sound recordings of a Banshee. A banshee is a spirit who appears in the form of a woman, the spirit of death in Irish lore. Whatever it was I heard I don’t know but it was the most beautiful and haunting recording of a female voice I had ever listened to. I swear it was at the Columbus Museum of Art but upon inquiry they didn’t know what I was talking about. But I did hear it for real, I’m not crazy. It has become a quest to find it, the Holy Grail, a song so beautiful it would render all others meaningless. Irish friends well versed in Irish lore could not lead me to it, scientific research through OSU’s music cognition program did lead me somewhere but not to the banshee. Many things I found on this quest; through keyword searches such as keening, wailing, mourning, and of course banshee, I have come across many voices of women weep-singing, a tradition that is forever linked with the wake of a deceased especially a child. The wake for a dead infant is a rite found in many parts of the globe (The Cossacks of the Caucasus in Russia, in the rain forests of Papua New Guinea, in Mediterranean Spain, Hungary, Latin America, Ireland, etc.) Especially the wakes in Christian countries are festive rituals, including music and dance to celebrate the child becoming an angel. Sound recordings of these are sparse but this year another two were added to my modest collection.  
I am pleased to welcome the eleventh geographic example of weep-singing to my collection. 
(If anyone has only the slightest idea of what I heard, that fateful afternoon in the museum, let me know. I will follow any and every lead.)

Bela Bartok

Rumanian Village Musicians
(from a photograph by Bela Bartok)
20" x 16"
oil on canvas, 2011

The opening to the Top 100 exhibition not only has the 100 paintings displayed, the 100 songs are also played as a countdown. It takes about seven to eight hours to play a hundred songs. Sometime, back in the eighties, it took much longer; there were years I was so into classical music that I played whole symphonies or other orchestral works. The longest Top 100 took nearly two days to play. One of the composers featured in that one was Bela Bartok, I was intrigued how his compositions had all the greatness of your typical symphonic orchestra piece but also had a very modern and folkloric flavor. Bela Bartok has been back in the margins of the Top 100 as a musicologist, first, a few years ago, as a transcriber for The Smithsonian Institute of Slavic music, and now as a collector of folk music. He is well known for his work on the folk music of his native Hungary, but also collected Central– and Eastern European music extensively. Case in point is a CD with music from his collection I picked up the other day with folk music of Rumania (as it was spelled in 1951, when the music was first published). Just a week ago I mused about the mouthwatering catalog of the Folkways label, and how some of it is re-issued on CD format. I had actually never heard any of Bartok's field work, and —it will come as no surprise— I am completely in love with it. I feel that the Romanian CD is particularly interesting because of Romanian's history as a Roman (hence the name) province, home of the Gypsies (Rom people —hence the name), the cradle of Klezmer, with relatively little change to its traditions from Roman times until the modern period. The Bartok recordings are pretty old and have no other agenda than to study (and preserve) local traditions in Romania. What is heard are roots of Klezmer music, dance music sounding more ancient than any I've heard anywhere, as well as archaic burial laments. Bartok collected mostly in the Central Basin of Transylvania, an area once belonging to Hungary. Transylvania is of course bathed in myth, the place in the Southern Carpathians, veiled in thick mist, home to werewolves and vampires alike. I imagine that in the early 20th Century  many folklorists rather go and record among Amazonian tribes in South America or head hunters in New Guinea, than to wage their life going to Transylvania. In a British founded museum (in Calcutta of all places!) I once saw a kit for travelers to Transylvania: It contained crosses, a silver stake, and of course... garlic.

Iry LeJeune

Iry LeJeune
16" x 16"
 oil on wood, 2011

No matter how obscure the person I paint, I always strive to capture one's likeness in a portrait. This is usually easier when I know the person, or at least, in the case of a celebrity, seen tons of photographs. There aren't that many of Iry LeJeune on the web, and when I finally settled for one to paint, I felt it looked a lot like my friend Ed Mann. Apart from a moment very early on in the painting, it never resembled neither Ed nor Iry. It looked like a whole score of people but LeJeune's likeness was elusive. It looked like Matt Bush, another local friend for a while before it became Chelsea player John Terry and then Lance Armstrong. When it became Ed again I knew Iry wasn't far away, and then finally it was just Iry. Iry LeJeune's story is rather tragic—he died at age 26— but his music is as good as it gets, his 30 sides recorded rank among the finest in Cajun music's history. One of these, the song Donnes Moi Mon Chapeau is a personal favorite and has gathered many Top 100 points over the years. Calcasieu Waltz is a second but it is not included on Cajun's Greatest - The Definitive Collection that contains most his recordings, but I found it on YouTube. It is the newest entry for the Top 100 2010.

Awesome Tapes from Africa Again!

Kayesha Seta
11.25" x 7.75"
oil on wood, 2011

Bali Kelele (I call it that for now, but it's really track 6 from a cassette of which Bali Kelele is the first track) by Kayesha Seta is the next entry for the Top 100 2010. The cassette that originates in Ethiopia, was posted on the blog Awesome Tapes from Africa just a few days ago, and this one is so awesome that I charted it right away and started painting it right away too. The cassette jacket sports a great picture of, I assume, Kayesha Seta and with a picture like that a painting couldn't go wrong. I didn't stray from the original image at all. I'm keeping up with the paintings right away as soon as new music hits the list because time's become an issue. Just a bit over a month to go and thirty more songs and paintings have to become part of the collection. Keep posting those tapes Brian Shimkovitz!

Peters and Pans

 

Pan Flute Player (Quechua)

9.5" x 7.5"

oil on wood, 2011

The next two into the hundred are Jimmy Peters with the Ring Dance Singers and Bolivian Indians both mentioned in the previous post. The only change is that the track listed from Bolivia is not by the Aymara Indians but a recording of Quechua Indians in stead. The Quechua recording, called Ceremonial on the LP Instruments and Music of Bolivia, is a bolero, a primitive version of that Spanish dance forever linked to the composer Maurice Ravel and the music Bo Derek likes to make love to. It is played on four sicus (Bolivian panflutes) and two drums. Panflutes and bagpipes used to be my two most hated instruments but I've warmed up to both. Both instruments have been in my Top 100 and I've painted several bagpipes before but while working on the Bolivian painting I realized I had never painted panflutes before. Such is the nature of numbers, records, and stats that no matter what you do it's always a first of something or a record of something or a milestone of some kind. It's also the first time I painted that funny Bolivian ceremonial hat with feathers and it's probably the first time I've painted a Bolivian in the first place.

It was however not the first time I've painted Jimmy Peters (I should say: painted an illustration for Jimmy Peters, for there is no image of Jimmy Peters.) Not able to find Peters' image I used the 2001 Jimmy Peters painting as a model for the new one. About halfway into it I realized that the model for the 2001 painting was this cartoon character, who may or may not represent an actual musician,  donning the CD J'ai ete au Bal (on which Peters' Zydeco Sont Pas Saler is featured.) Jimmy Peters and the Ring Dance Singers recorded in the mid-thirties. J'ai Fait Tous le Tour du Pays was recorded by Alan Lomax.

J'ai Ete au Bal
11" x 5.5"
oil on wood, 2011

Top 100 2001: The 
Jimmy Peters illustration

11" x 6"

ink, charcoal on wood, 2002

Novo Domovina

Out with the old, in with the new.  As years go anyway, the Top 100 2010 is not yet done, not until February at least. I just made top 10 #55 for the year 2010, reflecting some of the music I listened to right before and after the switch of years, also reflecting the last music bought in 2010 and the first in 2011, and reflecting some sappy music that provided the soundtrack to seasonal happiness (as it happens only once a year.) Plus a reproduction of the first painting made in this brand new year and some statistical updates on the rapidly appearing deadline for this annual project.

1. Les Poppys – Non, non, rien n’a change     —The festive season is always good to play the hits from one’s memory lane. This one by the French teen choir Les Poppys was a giant number one in Holland for many weeks when I was about eight, I remember the TopPop clip vividly. My brother, who is a bit older than me, bought the 7 incher, passed it on to my sister before it became mine to keep. The Peter part from Peter van Boekel was crossed out, Annemie written underneath, crossed out again and replaced with Berry (and it’s been like that ever since 1980).
2. Focus – Hocus Pocus      —Sentiment, sentiment, sentiment. Sentiments galore this past week but there will be no music from my native Holland this year despite really rockin' out on the Tee Set and Focus (with these great guitar licks by our own guitar hero Jan Akkerman and emblematic flute sounds by Thijs van Leer.) No Haagse Biet, no Golden Earring, no nothing.
3. The Doors – Light My Fire      —Hits don't get much bigger than this... What should I say: I could mention that according to Ray Manzarek (who came up with the intro that would epitomize a generation) the theme is loosely based on My Favorite Things in the version from John Coltrane. And that, dear friends would be my favorite track ever. It is my #1 of the continued Top 100 list with great distance.
4. Aymara Indians of Bolivia – Quenita      —Pretty much every single record released by Folkways is exquisite. Looking through their catalog is mouthwatering. These days the Smithsonian Library of Congress is re-releasing quite a few on CD but to release all of them, clearly, would be commercial suicide. Thank God the Smithsonian is not a commercial institution. I have no idea if Instruments and Music of Bolivia from 1962 was ever re-released on CD but it certainly should be. 
5. Jimmy Peters and the Ring Dance Singers – J'ai Fait Tous le Tour du Pays      —The last purchase of 2010 was a CD from Alan Lomax Collection called Cajun & Creole Music II: 1934/1937 from the Classic Louisiana Recordings series released by Rounder Records. The recordings show, among other things, the country roots of urban Zydeco/Cajun music. There are no instruments on the CD, just singing and clapping. Jimmy Peters is for me the only familiar singer on the CD: The Top 100 2001 featured the song Les Haricots Sont Pas Sale! (the beans aren't salted) or Zydeco Sont Pas Sale. It gave a name to a new style of music.
6. Bob Dylan – Behind Here Lies Nothin'      —I got a coupon in the mail and spent it on Bob Dylan’s new (2009) Together Through Life deluxe edition box set. I do kinda collect Bob Dylan but the coupon made me buy it. Honest.
7. Hank Williams – Too Many Parties and Too Many Pals       —This one’s pretty sappy, tucked into the Bob Dylan CD set above as part of Dylan’s radio show Theme Time Radio with a theme related to friends and neighbors. I already had a copy of the song as it appears on Luke The Drifter (the original LP). It’s not a Talking Blues but a Talking Country and, according to Bob Dylan, as moralistic as it is a gem, like every song on the Luke the Drifter album.
8. Carole King – You’ve Got a Friend      —Almost as sappy as the one above this one is also from the same Dylan radio show as the one above. I already had the original vinyl as well (from Tapestry, everybody has that one, right?) The most important LP from the early 70s according to Dylan. I can second that, as far as playing it at the Holidays at least. Even Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours sounds like the classic it once was when you’re in the right mood and 'tis the right season.
9. Singing Francine – Love is the Ansaw      is the newest single in my still growing collection purchased for $1.98 at Half Price Books. A calypso recorded in Trinidad, distributed through Straker, a tiny little Brooklyn based label. Growing up we had our own Singing Francine (I hear she still sings): Happy New Year Dear.
10. Fadimoutou Wallet Inamoud - Kidal      —I can't promote the blog Awesome Tapes from Africa enough. The newest entry concerning a Tuareg tape from Mali is again super awesome: "Hypnotic, minimalist (and hard to find)"

    

    Pere Tumbas-Hajo
    11.25" x 5.25"
    oil on wood, 2011

I’m real pleased with this painting, the first one done in the new year. Because the painting’s supposed to represent a solo performance, I removed (did not paint) the supporting players behind ‘tamburitza’ legend Pere Tumbas-Hajo (1891-1967) and a woman (a singer, a dancer, his wife? I don’t know.) The group already was smaller on the photo than it normally would have been as it was taken on his one and only international tour —to Wales.) Without the support of his band Tumbas-Hajo himself seems to be tipping over a bit but I think it’s a lovely painting nevertheless, well grounded in European tradition and American post-modern kitsch. Tumbas-Hajo is a stand in for Tomo Jurcevic, a recent Cleveland immigrant (in 1981) from Kodrun in Slavonija (Yugoslavia), whose tune played on a 'samica' landed into this list of 100 but whose image I could not find. A samica is a relative of the better known tamburitza. The tune Becarac by Jursevic comes from the LP Nova Domovina/A New Homeland produced by the Ohio Arts Council, a wonderful organization that funds great things (I apply for funding every year but never got a penny yet).

I got a new computer for Christmas and one of the things that excites me the most about it is that I can make charts on it. Pie charts, columns, bars, and what not. I tried to make one to include here but it was a bit more difficult than I thought. Soon, pretty soon, you'll get so many charts with analytical  data that you won't like any pie any more. For now I will list my favorite stat just with their numbers. These are the 23 countries of origin after 66 of the 100 songs are listed:
1. USA, including several cultural minority  groups, 27 (40.9%); 2. Great Britain, 6 (9.1%); 3. China, 5 (7.6%); 4. Norway, 4 (6.1%); 5. Australia, Hungary, Indonesia, Jamaica, and Spain, all with 2 (3% each); 10. Japan, Vietnam, Italy, Mexico, Mali, Nigeria, South Africa, Bahamas, Uganda, Barbados, India, Albania, Portugal, Ethiopia, all with 1 (1.5% each).