Yo La Tengo and Steve Eliovson/Colin Walcott

Bob Burnett: We've let the site sit still basking in the stage lights of the Jonas Brothers concert review. I was just headphonin' on my couch at sunrise, listening to Yo La Tengo's "And then nothing turned itself inside-out" on a quiet rain-filled Sunday and said, "it's time....yes.....it's time" especially since last evening was filled with Yo La Tengo's recent "Popular Songs" release. Yo La Tengo is the group for me that brings so many things together-including the desire to write a thing or two on C60. I google-crawled around for a moment looking into what was being written about "Popular Songs" and discovered the usual need to say the band has been at it 25 years as well as a need to dog the two long, beautiful, engaging cuts at the end of the release as "interminable".....blah....blah reviwerspeak slather. Yo La Tengo can do their own version of Erik Satie's "Vexations" on every release as far as I'm concerned. More about Erik Satie's "Vexations" here if interested. They've earned the right in my opinion to extend, extend and extend. The world needs more "Sister Ray"'s in a Morton Feldman blender.

Another bright spot for me this weekend was the re-discovery of the Steve Eliovson/Colin Walcott album "Dawn Dance". The ECM duet album of acoustic guitar and percussion came out in the early '80s. I used to play it all the time and then one day just stopped. Never to re-visit. In fact, it eventually vanished a long time ago from my "record collection". I had a sudden "I wonder what happened to Steve Eliovson" moment yesterday. I found he made "Dawn Dance" to well-received praise and due to a series of life circumstances pretty much Giuseppi Logan'd and vanished from the world of music. The album is hopelessly out-of-print however is available as a download from Amazon for under $10. There's a rather nice photo montage on youtube that features a cut from the album worth looking into.

Re-finding this album is tempting me to consider getting the Codona boxed set. Just what I need--another boxed set to simultaneously revel in the fact that I have it--and be overwhelmed by the sheer mass to ever properly listen in full.