The late, great Miles Davis is quoted as once having said that “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture”.  The quote has been attributed to several other people, but the point that it makes stands up. Music is something you listen to, that you feel, and that mostly bypasses your intellectual filters.  When you try to write about it you end up either describing flat technical details that don’t communicate much, or speaking in personal, emotive terms that are only really meaningful to the individual.

Still, it’s FAM over at GJ’s, and she suggested that I say something about someone that I’ve been listening to for years, and who deserves a mention now.  I first heard Aimee Mann’s voice when she was fronting Til Tuesday, a short-lived new wave pop group that had one major hit, ‘Voices Carry’, back in the mid-80s. Even then her clear, brittle voice was captivating and the song pulled you in.  The group released three albums, but pretty much disappeared. I think it was because of the ‘Big Hair’.

I was vaguely aware that Mann had gone on to release a few critically-acclaimed solo albums that left behind the whole ‘new wave’ thing and moved into an introspective kind of folk-acoustic pop, but I didn’t stop to search them out.  Then in 2000 she wrote four gorgeous songs that ended up on the soundtrack to the Paul Thomas Anderson movie, Magnolia. These were richly melodic pieces of perfectly-crafted acoustic pop. They were clever and perceptive, gentle and yet tough.   Songs like “Save Me” (which was nominated for an Academy Award and was one of the best song performances on the Oscars ever), “Driving Sideways”, “Build That Wall”, and “Momentum”.

Those songs were added to her utterly brilliant album, Bachelor No. 2, or the last remains of the dodo, which is one of my favorite records ever.  The thirteen songs on it at are all terrific, and rightly described by All-Music as matching her “literate, mildly self-deprecating, clever, melancholy, melodic style”.  If you have a taste for intimate, introspective pop, then there are very few better albums around. Mann’s voice is gorgeous, her lyrics intelligent, and the accompaniment is perfect.

Mann has released some strong albums since Bachelor No. 2, but it’s the place you should start, I think. You can all search her on YouTube (I hate embedding those things,  so I’ll leave it to you and your SearchFu to do it) and you’ll see what I mean. I was really disappointed to hear she’s touring OZ in a few months and not making it to Perth. sigh.

I can hardly believe it. Things change quickly around here.  Just yesterday morning I was posting to a private mailing list that I was disappointed to not be going to World Fantasy in San Jose this October.  Many of my friends are going, it’s my favorite convention in the world, and there would be a chance to catch up with all sorts of new people too. However, I had decided that I would go to Montreal for Worldcon and it would be my one trip to the US this year.

Well, life is rich and strange here at Coode Street. Within an hour of writing my email the possibility arose that I might make San Jose. Then it became more likely. Then Marianne agreed, which I really didn’t expect given what these trips demand of her. And, now, I’m going!  It’s going to be a lightning trip, but I’ll be in San Jose from Wed 28 October to Monday 2 November, then home. I really, really hope that I’ll see everyone (Jeff, Jeff & Ann, Lucius, Bill, Ellens, Locusfolk, everyone!) when I’m there. I can’t wait. I’m totally stoked and I’m very, very grateful to Marianne and to somebody else. Pink drinks!!!!!

I was born in 1964. I was five years old (just shy of my sixth birthday) when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I very clearly remember clustering around our old black and white television set to watch the lunarlanding, just as we later would watch the follow-up Apollo missions, Skylab and so on throughout the ’70s. I got caught up in the futurism which seemed to sweep everywhere that seemed to say we’d not only be traveling to the stars some time very soon, but we’d also have cities of tomorrow on the moon, under the ocean — everywhere. I have a copy of my annual primary school magazine that came out in 1971. Students were asked what they were going to be doing when they gew up. Aged 7, I wrote that I was going to be a geologist when I grew up and would live on Mars. I believed it in 1971 because it was believable then.

My friend girliejones is hosting a ‘Women in Music’ appreciation month.  There are a lot of artists, songs and albums I would recommend: Suzanne Vega’s debut, Rickie Lee Jones’ debut, Norah Jones’ debut, Missy Higgins’ debut, the Indigo Girls early compilation 4.5, Heart’s Dreamboat Annie, Joni Mitchell’s Blue, and either of the first two Pretenders albums, but instead I thought I might mention something that I’ve been listening to a lot these past few months. Shelby Lynne’s Just a Little Lovin‘ is a beautiful tribute to the music of the late Dusty Springfield.  A successful country and western singer herself, she takes songs from Dusty in Memphis and elsewhere and slows them down a tad, sings them a whisker lower, and delivers a slow, sensual sound the caresses careworn sensibilities.  It almost doesn’t matter what she’s singing, because it’s the sound of her voice that gently picks you up and carries you away, not the words she’s saying.  In truth some of the lyrics are best left unparsed, but the sound is for late nights and perfect Sunday mornings.

Well, this weekend is going to be about three things. Finishing Eclipse and Subterranean, and planning my schedule for the US trip. I’m terribly, terribly behind on the latter. I know where the planes are going to leave me, but not much else, which is crazy. I’ve not got a final program from Anticipation, but I have a few programmed things. Nothing planned for California, the sightseeing day in Montreal, or for the convention. Must fix!