In the middle of the earth, in the land of the Shire...

People have been posting music to their blogs lately. Here is some music I like.

This is Gillian Welch and David Rawlings with Old Crow Medicine Show playing "Wrecking Ball."


It has quite a bit of chatting at the beginning, but this is probably my favorite Gillian Welch song and one of my favorite songs in general. Both Gillian and David Rawlings are incredibly talented musicians and songwriters, but I think what I like best about them is how obvious it is that they love what they're doing. This might not be the best video to use as an example, but Rawlings makes the best faces when he's playing, sometimes you can tell that he's thinking ahead in a song and he's come up with something really awesome to play next, because he starts grinning like crazy, clearly digging what he's doing. I find it very refreshing to watch talented people who pretty clearly do what they do first because they love it, and second because they can make money doing it.


Also, it is a not-so-secret ambition of mine to one day become a proficient bluegrass banjo player. About five years ago in a fit of impulse I bought a banjo on e-bay for $89, and have yet to learn to play it. I was under the mistaken impression that since I already know how to read music, it wouldn't be that hard to learn to play a string instrument when I'm coming from a clarinet/saxophone background, with which you don't really need to think much about complicated stuff like chord construction/progression. Slightly naive, self.


It sure photographs nice though, doesn't it?

I was going to put here some songs that I would play on a nice spring day with all the windows of my car rolled down... if I had a car... but the only decent-quality video I could find of Butch Walker's "Hot Girls in Good Moods" was full of Avril Levine pictures, and I didn't want to subject you to that. And then the only version I could find of "Gin House Blues" was not Nina Simone, but all slowed-down Eric Clapton. Alas.

Well. That did not go nearly as well as I had hoped. Because of that, you may have "The Mariner's Revenge Song:"



And "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins."



You can thank me later.