Some things I've been digging lately, in no particular order:
Harry Nilsson's Son of Schmilsson. I knew a lot about Nilsson way before ever listening to him, mainly because all of my favorite musicians loved hanging out with him in the 70s (seriously, look at this picture). A few weeks ago when I was at home in Vista, I pulled out Son of Schmilsson from my dad's collection and immediately understood why all these guys loved him. Aside from being laugh-out-loud funny, the songs on this album are incredibly well-crafted and just straight up good. Fatefully, I happened to find a copy of the album at the latest Alameda Antiques Faire, and it's been sitting on the record player ever since.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Ok, I finally watched this movie (seriously, what took me so long?) and now I am obsessed with it. It's one of the most brilliant films I've ever seen...outrageous and hilarious and quite terrifying all at the same time. Can you imagine what watching this in early 1964 was like?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qli7nRzc12w
George C. Scott is amazing (we also recently saw him in The Hustler, the 1961 Paul Newman film, and I'm quickly becoming a fan), but no one can top the genius of Peter Sellers in this film.
For me, Sellers falls into the same bucket as Nilsson: someone I first became aware of because of his associations with the Beatles (let's face it, everything I become interested in somehow stems from the Beatles). But I hadn't really seen/heard much of his work until recently. After this, I can't help but feel like I have lots of treasure to uncover.
Trivia: Sellers was one of the only people that Kubrick let improvise in one of his movies; as a result, most of his scenes are ad-libbed. Notably, this one, where you can see Peter Bull trying to hold back laughter around 3:10.
New music! Another shoutout to A Song A Day (and also Alex) for keeping me in touch with all the excellent music of today. Lately I've been enjoying:
- "Augustine" - Blood Orange. Dev Hynes participated in Contemporary Color so he gets a thumbs up in my book.
- "Door" - Nice as F*ck
- "Dorothy" - Kevin Morby. It appears that Kevin Morby and I share the exact same aesthetic.
- "Elevator Operator" - Courtney Barnett
- "Hello, Lakisha" - Kilo Kish. So fun. Too short.