Songs

[Mike Weaver]

An end to lurking...
        An English non academic Pynchonian revealing his presence after a
few weeks of list reading and almost 25 years of enjoyment of the man's work. 
 On Wed, 8 Jan  Alan Joyce wrote:
>On a more specifically Pynchonian note: one thing I've often been curious
>about is whether anyone has ever written music for and recorded any of the
>songs in TRP's books -- anybody know?  I have this wish for someone like
>Tom Waits to do a "Gravity's Rainbow" album someday...
>    
 My introduction to Pynchon came courtesy of Insect Trust who recorded The
Eyes of A New York Woman from V.  A bunch of NY based folkies and jazzers
who made two brilliant albums in the late sixties then fell apart totally,
their rendition sung by an ex Boston folksinger Nancy Jeffries who has a
wonderfully clear and strong voice. The track also features an exquisite
recorder solo by Bob Palmer who probably wrote the tune.  The only
biographical bit I have seen on them was in a mid seventies US fanzine
called Flash which had an excellent section where various reviewers and
music writers celebrated their favourite obscure albums.  Someone - I can't
remember who- (Greg Ward?) raved about them in upclose knowledgeable terms.
That issue also featured articles on MC5 and Dave Clark 5, an awesome
breadth of musical taste.
The song is on Hoboken Saturday Night, the second album and is well worth a
listen as is the first - The Insect Trust.
        That's all I know of by way of recordings.  Tom Waits:  hmmmm,
possibilities there.

Reading at present: The Greek Myths - Robert Graves.
                    Time Out Of Joint - Philip K Dick
                    How To Read Donald Duck - Dorfman and Mattelart
Always in reach: GR,  Gramsci's Prison Notebooks,  Order Out Of Chaos by
Ilya Prigogine & Isobelle Stengers.

Listening,  Nowt new, just familiar favourites,  Ali Farka Toure, Dr John,
Skip James, Love (first album mostly, tho I did play Forever Changes a
couple of weeks ago), Lord Buckley ("Humour is the oil of the soul"),
Vivaldi, and Abdullah Ibrahim.


        TTFN Mike W 
                                  
                                           
Mike Weaver (pic at gn.apc.org)