To the three free jazz heads/nail polish freaks out there

According to the nail polish grapevine, the Lippmann Collection is discontinuing "Bitches Brew" - the only nail polish I know of that commemorates Miles Davis's controversial incorporation of rock elements into his music. When I first ordered it through Nordie's helpline (I had to score the supercute Xmas polish "Holiday" and it wasn't on the website), the sales clerk burst into laughter. When I ordered my archival backup, I wisely chose the website - fewer comments from the peanut gallery.

However, "Nefertiti" is still available. I think Lippmann is honoring Wayne Shorter's composition, but it gives me a giggle to think that it also references Cecil Taylor. This gold is super-cute underneath a bright red, or a garnety brown like, say, Bitches Brew. Jazz-y, one might say.

Nail polish

What Color Nail Polish Best Fits You?

Your Nail Polish Color is Black

How you're unique: There's nothing about you that isn't unique Why your style rocks: You are a total indie chick... and you can pull it off What this color says about you: "I'm a trendsetter and don't care what anyone else is doing!"

Ya, well, that, a kick in the noggin and five cents won't buy you a cup of coffee anymore. Only a headache.

Funny, and I almost never wear black polish. The one I have has silver glitter in it. I actually prefer maroons and rusts like this:

OPI Charge It in Milan

Derek Bailey RIP

We lost a great one. Obit from the Guardian. (Thanks to Mr. Kurt who tipped me to it.)

While I perhaps didn't know Bailey's work as well as I should have, I'm certainly familiar enough with his influence on his artistic and spiritual children. Gonna pop on Outcome, that CD he did with Steve Lacy a while back, and just ponder the fingerprints those men put all over improvisational culture.

Children of the Calhoun Surf a.k.a. gig

Big Surf CD Release Party with guest Michael Yonkers
The Hexagon Bar
2600 27th Ave S., Minneapolis
January 7, 2006
21+
Music at 9:00 p.m.




Hosts: Ron and Jean from KFAI's Radio Rumpus Room
(Here's a great interview/performance from Yonkers from, yikes, is it four years ago now?)

Vincent Schiavelli RIP

I'm shocked to see how easily the obits skip over the veteran character actor's work as a respected writer on the food of Sicily. "Award-winning"? The dude won a James Beard award for his writing - the Pulitzer of the food world. When I still read Gourmet, I'd be entranced by his passionate, informative writing on the subject of Sicilian foodstuffs.



Schiavelli at the 2002 Oscars with wife Carol Mukhalian

Here's a nice press release for his final book , which I now feel the need to own.

Fine obit from Playbill. For the volatile, fickle profession of acting, "continuously employed" is a darn good legacy. His colorful, passionate second career in his 40s and 50s is equally good. Condolences to his wife, and his whole surrogate family in Sicily.

Der Voice Polsk

This year's model, hastily typed out on a cybercafe computer in Houghton, MI. But it was a pretty decent year, even for hermits like me.

1. Porcupine Tree - Deadwing - Lava
2. Opeth - Ghost Reveries - Century Media
3. Salamander - Bent Hemlock - Camera Obscura
4. Paul Metzger - Three Improvisations on Modified Banjo - Chair Kickers
5. Enslaved - Isa - Candlelight
6. Gary Higgins - Red Hash - Thrill Jockey
7. System of a Down - Mezmarise - Sony
8. Sentenced - The Funeral Album - Century Media
9. The Darkness - One Way Ticket To Hell and Back - Atlantic
10. Various Artists - New Thing! - Soul Jazz

Bubbling under, just barely:
Todd Tamanend Clark - Nova Psychedelia 1975-85
Judas Priest - Angel of Retribution
Grupo Fantasma - Movimiento Popular (special $1 Target reissue)
Queens of the Stone Age - Lullabies to Paralyze

No singles, the iShuffle kind of put a kibosh to my radio listening, apart from 'FMU once a week when I'm at a real computer with Windows Media and a headphone jack 'n' stuff.

Happy Newt Year

I want a panel van with huge speakers so I can go blasting Nazareth's "Hair of The Dog" throughout the quiet, hungover Minneapolitiptoetan neighborhoods.

I think I'll take the chorus as my mission statement for '06:

Now you're messing with a sonuvabitch.

clink-clink-clink-clink