also, what's up w/the fact that my mom won't let me steal her records anymore. she doesn't EVER listen to them. and what i listen to almost exactly mimics what she was listening to at my age
― jaxon (jaxon), Friday, 2 December 2005 22:34 (eighteen years ago) link
ANY dollar bin should have it. i'm assuming you don't have it on CD or mp3s?
― like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 2 December 2005 22:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 2 December 2005 22:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― jaxon (jaxon), Friday, 2 December 2005 22:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― Roy Kasten, Friday, 2 December 2005 23:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 3 December 2005 00:41 (eighteen years ago) link
"Naw...naw...I'm not the greatest. I don't think there is a 'greatest.' Maybe we're living in a time of No Greatest. There's no 'greatest' anymore. I dunno...maybe one of -you- is the greatest. [pause] Hey...if anybody here thinks they're the greatest, come on up onstage. [pause] Naw...never mind...one of you assholes would probably do it."
Still the best stage patter I've ever heard.
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 02:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 02:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 02:40 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.matadorrecords.com/images/minis/ole-626.jpg
xpost: i figured it was one of the other kinds.
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 02:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 02:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 02:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 02:46 (eighteen years ago) link
(Sorry, I've been drinking Pernod, and am sentimental and nostalgic.)
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 02:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 02:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:03 (eighteen years ago) link
not even small change? i'll grant that he could be excessively maudlin and prone to the worst elements of beat-cliche, but the sadness is sad and the jokes are roffletastic and the cocktail-schmaltz piano playing is just godly.
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:36 (eighteen years ago) link
otoh, i'd hate to think of where we'd be if our favorite wackos had never been allowed to free-express.
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:46 (eighteen years ago) link
But yeah, of course, total rulelessness can be pretty fab.
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:49 (eighteen years ago) link
i think if anything waits has gotten more like that over the years -- it's a shame his frank's wild years/black rider phase had to turn into stuffy elderstatesmanship rather than the full-on nihilism it should have progressed into. he's had a similar career arc as neil young (who shouldn't be doing that grandfatherly folksy twaddle either).
the early tom waits records were fun innocent L.A. hedonism. dirty jokes. good times.
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:52 (eighteen years ago) link
I would still rather listen to Small Change, it must be said.
― sleeve (sleeve), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 03:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcel Post (Marcel Post), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Banana Nutrament (ghostface), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― sleeve (sleeve), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Great Pagoda of Funn (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 3 December 2005 04:46 (eighteen years ago) link
New album Sermon On Exposition Boulevard is a big mess. She walks in the sandals of Jesus when there was nothing wrong with her boots; she also does this mewling speaking-in-tongues thing on a few songs. Not good. And yet, and yet--the first song, "Nobody Knows My Name" rocks harder than she ever has. Drone-mantra, post VU throw down. We don't need another song about Elvis (the Son of God, of course) and Cadillacs, but this one has a groove that gets her over the silly name dropping (I think it's available for download on her website somewhere). And her voice is really terrific, when she's not mewling, and some of the best tracks just about reach the Vanological gospel trance state she's always loved. I give it a solid B.
― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 02:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― chuck e. (xhuck), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 02:40 (seventeen years ago) link
― is anyone anticipating the new Baaderonixx? (baaderonixx), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 09:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― Monty Von Byonga (Monty Von Byonga), Wednesday, 31 January 2007 09:45 (seventeen years ago) link
I'm really digging 'Magazine' right now.
― baaderonixx, Friday, 11 January 2008 09:41 (sixteen years ago) link
That album has one of the most wtf reviews on AMG:
The reason The Magazine was such a disappointment was that Rickie Lee Jones had proven herself a major artist with her first two albums and turned into a self-conscious, pretentious, minor one on this, her third. Once, she made art by observing street people and describing them carefully; now she tried to make "Art" by navel-gazing. What a letdown.
― baaderonixx, Friday, 11 January 2008 09:43 (sixteen years ago) link
"The Magazine" is one of the greatest albums of the 80's..."Deep Space" is just breathtaking
― sonnyboy, Friday, 11 January 2008 12:29 (sixteen years ago) link
classic
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 11 January 2008 12:31 (sixteen years ago) link
However the AMG review of her last album Sermon on Exposition Boulevard makes it sound amazing. Thom Jurek is so the best "I'll have what he's having" reviewer of AMG. He likes recent Maria McKee too though which makes me inclined to trust him.
― Tim F, Friday, 11 January 2008 21:43 (sixteen years ago) link
So I need to go back and read through whole thread, but I'm really curious: After her debut LP, did Rickie Lee ever do any tracks with anywhere near the bounce, energy, hooks, and humor of "Chuck E.'s In Love" and "Danny's All Star Joint" again? They're far and away the best things on that album (I'd take "Weasel And The White Boys Cool" third, then probably "Easy Money"), most of the rest being dull tasteful ballads (tasteful musically, anyway, even when asking you to stick it into coolsville.) I've never heard Pirates or Magazine, and I'm guessing they'd bore me (like her Girl At Her Volcano covers EP did), but maybe I'm wrong. (Also, if she didn't ever do anything as catchy as "Chuck E.'s" again, I'm wondering if she ever explained why not. Was she just embrassed about having an actual hit?)
Also starting to be convinced, though, that she was probably at least a somewhat relevant influence on Teena Marie's beatnik jive-talk side -- even ballads like "Company" on the debut sound kinda proto-Teena, and the lyric sheet looks a little like It Must Be The Magic's inner sleeve. They both even include photos of themselves as little girls. Teena's debut LP came out in 1979, too, but she didn't really reveal her beatnik side until later. Of course, it's possible they were both just channeling Joni Mitchell in vaugely similar ways.
― xhuxk, Monday, 26 April 2010 02:11 (thirteen years ago) link
The timbre of her voice has always bothered me, but if you're looking for settings that complement it check out her Walter Becker collaboration from 1989. It won't convert you -- it reminds me a little of what Joni failed to attempt at the same time -- but it ain't much different than what you're used to from her.
― Throwing Muses are reuniting for my next orgasm! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 26 April 2010 02:17 (thirteen years ago) link
Chuck Pirates is dreamy and jazzy so if you don't like the ballad parts of the debut I wouldn't recommend it as an album, but "Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking" is an awesome party joint.
"Living It Up" and the title track swing between uptempo and morose with a vertiginous intensity that is pretty rare I think but I'm not sure you'd enjoy that.
― Tim F, Monday, 26 April 2010 02:23 (thirteen years ago) link
there was a bunch of stuff on The Magazine that was hookier than anything really on Pirates - I think "Runaround" and "It Must Be Love" were both on that one, which were both RLJ at her most hummable
― brad whitford's guitar explorations (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Monday, 26 April 2010 02:36 (thirteen years ago) link
also Alfred if "what Joni failed to an attempt" is a Night Ride Home dis, know that I will cut you
This is what I heard, btw:
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/segments/rickie-lee-joness-life-road
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 12 April 2021 01:03 (three years ago) link
She is an absolute magician.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB89sotCQx4
― edited for dog profanity (cryptosicko), Tuesday, 20 April 2021 03:39 (three years ago) link
Great song I haven’t heard in ages. Love when the other voices come in.
― that's not my post, Wednesday, 21 April 2021 01:18 (three years ago) link
Finished the book last night and really enjoyed it. I was ~2/3 through it and realized, geez, she's only like 17yo to this point. She had a wild early life in all senses of the word. She saw the world, lived a lifetime before she was even 18. The last third goes by quick and is mostly her early career (which overlapped her relationship w/ Tom Waits), which took off fast. But everything that led up to that was in some ways more interesting. She's a great storyteller. Recommended!
I've listened a lot to Pirates and especially Flying Cowboys since starting the book. Beautiful albums and the production on both is fantastic.
― j.o.h.n. in evanston (john. a resident of chicago.), Wednesday, 16 June 2021 18:22 (two years ago) link
listening to the magazine and flying cowboys for the first time today and while they're not quite as transcendent as pirates they're still really fantastic wow
"satellites"!
― ufo, Saturday, 19 June 2021 07:24 (two years ago) link
The Magazine in particular is just brilliant (love Flying Cowboys as well) but yes unfair to compare it to one of the ten best albums of all time.
Vaguely relatedly I lost my copy of Ghostyhead and it appears it is not on streaming services!?!?!
― Tim F, Saturday, 19 June 2021 07:41 (two years ago) link
The Magazine is the one I had on tape as a teenager and yeah it's wonderful, still my favourite tbh.
― A viking of frowns, (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Saturday, 19 June 2021 08:08 (two years ago) link
you can really hear her love of the blue nile on flying cowboys
― ufo, Saturday, 19 June 2021 08:47 (two years ago) link
I feel like she perhaps recognised kindred spirits: smooth surfaces / excessive feeling
― Tim F, Saturday, 19 June 2021 09:52 (two years ago) link
I would love to know what Rickie thinks of Sade.
― Tim F, Saturday, 19 June 2021 09:53 (two years ago) link
there are just some very blue nile synth tones in places on flying cowboys
which albums after that are worth digging into
― ufo, Sunday, 20 June 2021 06:50 (two years ago) link
I think Ghostyhead is really interesting: sort of a "belatedly ride the trip hop wave" effort on the surface but that dismissive take belies what's really going on which is that Rickie makes the obvious connection that these more rhythmic but still-guitar-driven soundtracks provide the perfect foil for her to really lean into her beatnik impulses - most of the album takes that kind of 'spill over the lines of the song' profusion aspect of her vocal approach to its logical conclusion. And musically I'm not sure what I'd compare it to: I imagine it was sold to Warner Bros as being in the vein of the first Beth Orton album but it's almost more like if New Kingdom decided to produce a folk artist.
― Tim F, Sunday, 20 June 2021 10:12 (two years ago) link
I have Pop Pop too, it's nice enough but nothing ever really grabbed me about it.
― A viking of frowns, (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Sunday, 20 June 2021 10:16 (two years ago) link
I like Pop Pop, which was the first RLJ album I ever listened to. "Dat Dere" and the Jefferson Airplane cover were the standout tracks I recall.
― Josefa, Sunday, 20 June 2021 12:36 (two years ago) link
It looks like the cover of the first album was flipped, I wonder why?
https://www.morrisonhotelgallery.com/photographs/gWMf6i/Rickie-Lee-Jones-Malibu-CA-1978
― Maresn3st, Monday, 30 May 2022 19:48 (one year ago) link
Was it? Most pics I see are oriented that way. Btw is she smoking a More cigarette there?
― Josefa, Monday, 30 May 2022 19:54 (one year ago) link
It wasn't. Album's always looked like this.
https://i.imgur.com/IYiRBnv.jpg
― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Monday, 30 May 2022 20:33 (one year ago) link
Weird, then I wonder what's happening here, and on some YouTube clips
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rickie-Lee-Jones/dp/B000002KK2
― Maresn3st, Monday, 30 May 2022 22:43 (one year ago) link
My guess is Gracenote or some other metadata provider for all the streaming/mp3 store platforms fucked with the art and it ended up everywhere. They've let the cover of Tracy Chapman's debut go on for years looking like a scan of a cd cover that was left in the back seat of a car in direct sunlight.
― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Tuesday, 31 May 2022 03:04 (one year ago) link
Don't know if I'll get a substantive answer, but I happen to know someone who works at Gracenote and she's going to ask the guy who handles that stuff tomorrow, so stay tuned maybe.
― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Tuesday, 31 May 2022 03:49 (one year ago) link
Ok so it turns out that when WB reissued the RLJ album in 2010 as an "original artist series" they flipped the image for reasons unknown to anyone but themselves.
― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Tuesday, 31 May 2022 16:40 (one year ago) link
Looks like she has a new album coming out - it's an American songbook album (all standards) produced by Russ Titelman. To promote it, she's doing an exclusive three-night residency at Birdland in NYC, which seems to have sold out, but there's a ticketed livestream. https://birdlandjazz.com/event/rickie-lee-jones/
― birdistheword, Friday, 17 March 2023 03:36 (one year ago) link
Correction - she's doing two shows each night, and only the "early" shows have sold out. They still have tickets for the late shows:
https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/rickie-lee-jones-1623129
― birdistheword, Friday, 17 March 2023 03:37 (one year ago) link
Pirates can bring me to tears.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 17 March 2023 03:43 (one year ago) link
― Tim F, Sunday, June 20, 2021 3:12 AM (one year ago)
so glad someone besides me loves this album
Pop Pop is great too, that Jimi cover is perfect
― obsidian crocogolem (sleeve), Friday, 17 March 2023 03:54 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAPCmubduvk
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 17 April 2023 23:05 (one year ago) link
yo sleeve! Sean and I both spoke for Ghostyhead, way upthread, so that makes four of us who Know. She understood how trip-hop can play well with words, for one thing.
― dow, Tuesday, 18 April 2023 02:19 (one year ago) link
<3
― Perverted By Linguiça (sleeve), Tuesday, 18 April 2023 02:20 (one year ago) link
(Counting her, that makes five who Know.)
― dow, Tuesday, 18 April 2023 02:21 (one year ago) link
omgomg just lucked into a ticket to her chicago show! so so so excited
― j.o.h.n. in evanston (john. a resident of chicago.), Wednesday, 17 May 2023 17:58 (eleven months ago) link
She put on a fantastic show last night. Opened w/ a solo piano version of "Living It Up" that she sang as though she'd written it last week. The set was mostly from her new album -- "There'll Never Be Another You" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street" were highlights -- but pulled from Pop Pop and the first album. She played guitar on a couple songs, incl "Weasel and the White Boys Cool" and was very obv having a blast. Her band is terrific, too.
― j.o.h.n. in evanston (john. a resident of chicago.), Tuesday, 23 May 2023 18:00 (eleven months ago) link
No Atlanta dates. :(
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, 23 May 2023 18:07 (eleven months ago) link
yeah, jealous
― broken breakbeat (sleeve), Tuesday, 23 May 2023 18:11 (eleven months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_7YGRLoG8
― MaresNest, Tuesday, 1 August 2023 09:20 (eight months ago) link
Aw crap, she did a free show in Brooklyn on Saturday and I totally missed it. (I was at another show anyway, but still, would've considered going to hers instead.)
― birdistheword, Tuesday, 1 August 2023 18:45 (eight months ago) link
Xpost that video of Rickie Lee talking about movies was awesome. Great storytelling chops and humor but I guess that was evident in her songs.
― that's not my post, Wednesday, 2 August 2023 14:29 (eight months ago) link
I kinda love that she took The Blob.
― niall horanburger (cryptosicko), Wednesday, 2 August 2023 14:53 (eight months ago) link
No mention of that hefty Fellini box though, which was odd.
― MaresNest, Wednesday, 2 August 2023 15:39 (eight months ago) link
The set was mostly from her new album -- "There'll Never Be Another You" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street" were highlights
― dow, Wednesday, 2 August 2023 17:35 (eight months ago) link
Happy birthday!
― hat trick of trashiness (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 November 2023 15:54 (five months ago) link
well, I'm ugly toono, no, no, you're not beautiful no, you're ugly toocause you've been traveling in so many universes and you manifest here
― hogarth brooks (unregistered), Wednesday, 31 January 2024 02:59 (two months ago) link