I Just Wanna Bang on My Drum All Day

Man, workin’ takes it out of you, especially during trade-show season. Let’s just say I’m tired & cranky and leave it at that. And to my friends/neighbours whom I bumped into on the street on the way home last night & treated to a long rant about All That Is Infuriating in My World, sorry about that, & thanks for patiently listening.

On another note, congrats to Elyse Friedman, whose short story “The Soother” I absolutely loved and who just won a National Magazine Award in the fiction category for said story. (I was one of the jurors in the category, so there is some correlation there.)

And speaking of the National Mag Awards, the ceremony’s host was Scott Feschuk, who these days is a Maclean’s columnist but for many years was the funnyman TV critic in the Post. I remember when I first started reading his stuff, it just made me grimace – it seemed so desperately manic & over-reaching. As the years passed, though, I grew to love him, and eventually he had me laughing out loud on a regular basis. (I still remember a piece he wrote about one of Mel Lastman’s lunatic press conferences during the SARS crisis, in which Mayor Mel kept asking “WHO? WHO?” in reference to the World Health Organization. So Feschuk wrote something to the effect of the estate of Abbott & Costello suing for copyright infringement.) After his hosting monologue, I can confirm again that he is one funny dude.

So anyway, getting back to the tired & cranky issue, I’m in a mood to slough my cares & feel good, and this song always makes me feel good.

• Millie Small, “My Boy Lollipop”

And so far this year no record has made me feel more good more often than Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound, a Soul Jazz comp heavy on Os Mutantes, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Caetano Veloso, etc. And this guy:

• Jorge Ben, “Take It Easy My Brother Charles” (buy it here)

I hear there’s a soccer tournament or something going on. Go Brazil!

On a related note, the Seattle label Light in the Attic is now distributing the Mutantes catalogue in North America, which marks the first time in several years that you can get the records at non-punishing prices. Hooray!

And they’re also doing another very cool record that’s coming out soon. The title says it all: Jamaica to Toronto: Soul, Funk & Reggae 1967-1974. And they have a sample mp3 up (which I’ve appropriated below) – this rockin’ maelstrom is as good an ad for the album as anything I can imagine.

• Jo-Jo and the Fugitives – “Chips Chicken Banana Split” (preorder it here)