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Author: Bryant

Fire at will

August 12, 2004
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Versions of “Shoot Out The Lights” in my music library:

  • The original, off Shoot Out The Lights, one of the best albums ever. Linda Thompson provides backup vocals. They were months from divorcing at this point, and you can tell; Shoot Out The Lights is also one of the most voyeuristic albums ever.
  • An acoustic version, from A Rare Thing. This album is a bootleg from the 1994 tour (August 13th, 1994, in Chapel Hill); middling quality, but good music. This is the only acoustic version I have, although I have a number of acoustic Richard Thompson albums. It’s not really an acoustic song. Then again, that’s what makes this version interesting.
  • A version from Two Letter Words, which is the legitimate live album also from a 1994 tour. This is electric, from earlier in 1994.
  • The X cover version from Beat The Retreat, one of two Richard Thompson tribute albums. Alas, this is X without Dave Alvin… but it doesn’t really matter, cause it’s still just about perfect. Actually, that whole album is pretty amazing; it’s a who’s who of alternative rock in 1994, with X and R.E.M. and Bob Mould and Los Lobos and David Byrne and so on. All this reminds me to pick up a copy of The World is a Wonderful Place, the other RT tribute album, which is a bunch of Brit folkies you’ve never heard of.
  • Where was I? Oh yeah: a new Los Lobos cover, off this year’s Ride This: The Covers EP. This is a companion to their recent The Ride, on which Thompson guests. It’s the roughest-edged of them all, I think, with pained guitar and hoarse vocals. Very tasty.
  • Bob Mould’s cover from Poison Years. This is the other version I feel somewhat guilty about owning, because Mould was none too pleased about that album — Virgin Records released it without his blessing and it doesn’t track very well as an album, even if we needed a greatest hits album from what was then a two-album solo career. However, it does have a live “Shoot Out The Lights” on it, so it’s not like I wasn’t going to buy it. Mould makes the song into even more of a dirge than it already is, with furious guitar solos. Beautiful.
  • Finally, a live version from Watching The Dark, the big sprawling Best Of album. This version was recorded on a 1983 tour, which is not long at all after Richard and Linda divorced. The order in which I list these is the order in which iTunes happens to sort them, but I think this is the perfect way to finish: back to where it all began, shortly after the pain inherent in the song found resolution.

I need to rip More Guitar, which also has a version on it, as does the new live CD Faithless. More Guitar is a recording from the 1988 tour, which was an electric tour: I saw it live and it literally changed my understanding of what guitar playing could be. John Mellencamp’s old drummer, Kenny Aronoff, played drums on that tour and brought a really aggressive tone to the music. The CD is likewise amazing. Faithless is from the 1985 tour, which I know nothing about, and I haven’t gotten around to ordering the CD yet.

There is no shortage of bootlegs that have “Shoot Out The Lights” on them. I wouldn’t mind owning Live At Toad’s Place; I’ve heard a couple songs from that set, including his “Hey Joe” cover, and wow. Rafferty’s Folly is also of interest — it’s an alternate version of Shoot Out The Lights. After Thompson recorded the take documented on the bootleg, he swapped producers and went back into the studio. There’s another version of that album, Before Joe Could Pull The Trigger…, but I think both use the same version of “Shoot Out The Lights.”

The Covers Project knows of no other cover versions, and Richard Thompson’s site knows of no other versions on legitimate albums, so there it is.

Bicoastal Asian

August 12, 2004
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If you were in the mood to get a taste of some cool Asian movies, there are two film festivals coming up in New York and San Francisco. New York has the New York Korean Festival, running from August 13th to the 22nd. I haven’t seen any of those movies, but I do hear good things about Memories of Murder. The Uninvited also got good reviews at FantAsia.

Meanwhile, over in San Francisco on the same dates, the Four Star is running the 8th annual Asian Film Festival. Note in particular Battlefield Baseball and Azumi. Hm, and not one but two Shaw Brothers flicks: One-Armed Swordsman and Lady General Hua Mulan. Old school 60s swordplay movies, both of them. Plus they’ll be showing both Ju-on and Ju-on 2.

Go do the right thing, and don’t forget that seeing movies at the Four Star will help them stay in business.

Pondering conflicts

August 9, 2004
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This is a follow up to my earlier post on Jim McCarthy and Off Wing Opinion, in light of further contemplation on my part and Eric’s post-mortem post.

On reflection, I’m pretty comfortable saying that there are potential issues here. Blogs may not be newspapers, but allow me to quote Jim on using blogs for PR:

“Blogs opened up a new front. It was a process of germination. The plan was to construct ideas with the media that would act as a filter so they would read subsequent pieces of information with the lens that you created.”

So it’s pretty hard not to believe that Jim uses blogs as a means of instilling his ideas in the media, since he’s on record as using them that way. And we know that Title IX reform is an idea he’s paid to push. Jim’s blogging on Off Wing Opinion benefits his clients. Now, is this a conflict of interest? From an ethical standpoint, no, unless you think that Jim has an ethical obligation to separate his blogging from his business. I may expect that, but where do those expectations come from? Nobody but myself.

But what about the practical aspects? At the core, the concept of conflict of interest is a practical one. We avoid them so that we never have to say “Hm, but what would he say if he wasn’t getting paid to say that?” When we avoid conflicts of interest, we strengthen our own arguments. When I read (say) Daily Kos, I am always aware that Markos Moulitsas has worked as a paid Democratic consultant — so there’s gonna be some bias there. Similarily, from an objective standpoint, I have to wonder the same thing about Jim’s posts.

Now! All that said, Jim did not make any secret of his previous involvement in Title IX reform, and he was up front about it when I asked. Implying otherwise was wrong and I am embarassed that I gave into my tendency to shoot without thinking. God bless the Internet for making it easy to forget that other people are people. To the degree that there’s a conflict of interest, it was disclosed up front. I would have liked it if Jim had mentioned that he works for the guy he interviewed, but that’s water under the bridge.

The other important thing I forgot is that Eric is a mensch. I trust Eric’s judgement, and I believe him when he says that he asked Jim to blog because he respects Jim’s expertise on the subject. Since I trust Eric, I should be willing to accept that Title IX reform is a subject that would be important to Jim whether or not he was getting paid to care about it. If I look at Jim’s track record — which includes the Religious Freedom Act of 1994, that legalized the use of peyote in Indian religious ceremonies — I see a guy who’s a fervent libertarian in a way that I can respect and appreciate.

Long post short: I don’t think I’d have asked Jim to guest blog if I were in Eric’s shoes, because I prefer to steer very clear of conflict of interest issues. However, I don’t think that Eric made a mistake asking Jim to guest blog. I shot from the hip, spoke too soon, and regret some but not all of what I said.

Cons and pros

August 9, 2004
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An Iraqi judge warrant was issued for Ahmed Chalabi’s arrest today, on charges of counterfeiting. A warrant was also issued for his nephew, Salem Chalabi, for murder.

There are two basic possibilities here. One: Ahmed Chalabi is guilty, in which case it’s about time we started admitting that the guy behind a lot of our evidence against Iraq is a liar and a crook. Those Iraqi defectors? He found them. He made up the meeting between Muhammad Atta and Iraqi intelligence in Prague. He may have been slipping information to Iran. He made up wacky stories about Saddam. He had the New York Times in his back pocket. Talk about a brilliant con man…

Or maybe he’s just being abused by crooked judges, in which case — if Iraq is the kind of country in which that sort of thing can happen openly — we’ve already come perilous close to failure. Take your choice.

Did you stop?

August 7, 2004
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This clip is pretty surreal. A Fox news host is quizzing Disney’s president about the new Disney computer for kids, and he takes a sudden right turn into attacking him for sponsoring Gay Days at the theme parks. That’s what I call good clean utterly insane fun.