Down To The Well (Day 47)

Sonic Youth - "Dripping Dream"
Tortoise - "Swung From The Gutters"
The Pixies - "Down To The Well" (live)
TV On The Radio - "Wash The Day Away"
The Clash - "London's Burning"
Devendra Banhart - "The Beard Is For Siobhan"
The Fiery Furnaces - "Straight Street"
Os Mutantes - "Cantor De Mambo (Mambo Singer"
Vetiver - "Roll On Babe"
Interesting that this song popped up already, because I just uploaded it yesterday. This is from the brand new album from Vetiver, Thing Of The Past. They are a San Francisco band that also gets lumped into that Devendra Banhart freak folk scene. (Boy this guy is all over my playlist/blog these days!) But for my money, there's nothing freaky about their folk. Vetiver, mostly Andy Cabic, play a really breezy and modern take on 70s melody-loving bands like, say, Bread. It's great summertime music, in my opinion. And the new album, which obviously I haven't had very long to live with, is actually all super-obscure covers. This song was originally performed (I think), by Ronnie Lane, who was in the Small Faces. It was on his first solo album, Anymore For Anymore, released in 1974 and which apparently featured a lot of rootsy folk-rock. HOLD ON! I just realized the song is actually written by Derroll Adams, who is a 50s folkie who played with Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Says Wikipedia: "According to legend, Adams and Elliott would go in the studio with whatever they had, which may have included whiskey and marijuana, and they recorded whatever they felt like recording on the spur of the moment." Wow, this is some record collector shit! Anyone ever have the pleasure of hearing Derroll Adams or Ronnie Lane versions of this song?
Hem - "Jackson"
Gang Of Four - "Not Great Men"

And then I got to work.

Today's Stats
Total songs listened to: 11
Total minutes of music (approx.): 51
Song with the most previous plays: "Down To The Well" - 5
Miscellaneous factoid about my trip to work today: I read a crazy article in the Times today. There are so many things to love about it, but the gist is these two Buddhist teachers living in Arizona have taken a vow to "never part." That means they must be within 15 feet of each other at all times. Naturally one is a woman and the other is a man (20 years older than her too!), but the vow is "chaste" they say. Okay, you have to take them at their word (spiritually speaking, they're the real deal, he's trained in the same tradition as the Dalai Lama himself). But after reading about 1,200 words about their unique situation you come to this choice paragraph:

The couple also admit to a hands-on physical relationship that they describe as intense but chaste. Mr. Roach compares it to the relationship his mother had with her doctor when she was dying of breast cancer. “The surgeon lay his hand on her breast, but there wasn't any carnal thought in his mind,” he said. “He was doing some life-or-death thing. For us it is the same.”

Love it. Their loose definition of the word chaste is not even the best part. That, for me, is where the story appears in the paper - - the House & Home section! Which means, naturally, there are plenty of details about their yurt.

Although devoid of modern conveniences, the yurt they live in, which is 22 feet in diameter, feels almost luxurious compared with the spare, desiccated landscape around it. On one side of the tent is their double bed, and beside it a commode elegantly disguised as a wood side table. The floor is covered with carpets. A few carved wooden chests hold clothes and pillows.

Light streams in from a hole at the center of the tent’s roof, illuminating its poles, which were imported from Mongolia. The closeness to nature means that the indoor temperature is essentially the ambient one — beyond baking in the summer and freezing in the winter. (Their one attempt to battle the elements is a wood-burning stove.)

Without further adieu - - your chaste, yurt-loving, wooden commode-sharing, monks of the day: