The Zombies/Colin Blunstone
It's very important that two days ago, I discovered this live cover of "This Old Heart of Mine" (with some...lyrical variation) from a random 1967 French dance show:
I have long classified The Zombies' frontman Colin Blunstone as my favorite vocalist, and I acquired a bulk of the band's 1960s catalogue as long ago as 2009. Still, over the years I've tended to fall into the trap of relistening to the same few songs--though the phrasing on "She's Not There" and "Tell Her No" is, to be sure, exquisite. A recent interview with the remaining band members on Professor of Rock's YouTube channel inspired me to embark on another deep dive, and this time a YouTube playlist, besides exposing the above delight and various demonstrations of the young Blunstone's endearingly awkward stage presence, also introduced me to his solo career. The iTunes review for his second album, Ennismore, notes that he
"recorded several underrated albums in the '70s that deserve to be rediscovered by the same cult that has embraced Nick Drake, another fine singer/songwriter with a knack for the somber and sublime."
The only way this could be more finely calibrated to me is if the reviewer turned out to be Stuart Murdoch. And per debut album One Year, I'm so far agreeing.
24/7 Calico Cats, Cats, Cats!
Five years ago, the Instagram algorithm introduced me to the universe of kitten fostering accounts, and it's become something of a peculiar emotional investment. Early this week, my first foster attachment, fosterkittendiary, shared a link to the TinyKittens HQ YouTube livestream, featuring two heavily pregnant calicoes recently rescued from a feral colony. I've now logged a truly embarrassing number of hours on it, between keeping a tab open on my browser, the YouTube iPhone app, or Roku (giving my own calico a chance to watch on the big screen!) while tracking Orinda's pre-labor roamings and trills, her dramatic day-long delivery, and now the early days of kittenhood while roommate Scotia awaits her own labor, waddles on the window ledge, and absconds with the communal catnip banana.
Post-Script: Daisy Jones & The Six
This was a late March/early April weeklong fixation, as I made my way through the ten-episode series on Amazon Prime over the course of five nights. It was highly enjoyable in the process, and I'm simultaneously fine with the story's having concluded--though it did make me wish for an original, open-ended series about a '70s rock act. The show was strongest when focusing on the creative process--the fragmentary ideas versus the hours of often fruitless focused labor required to bring them to life--joining other series like Mad Men, Halt and Catch Fire, and Fosse/Verdon that excelled in that arena. But the show would also have fallen a little more flat if not for the talents of music producer Blake Mills, who created a decent pastiche of Fleetwood Mac and similar rock acts of the era. (Though the story's focus on the songwriting dynamic between Daisy and Billy sadly meant no full tribute to Christine McVie via the character of British keyboardist Karen.) The incidental soundtrack, featuring a slew of familiar tracks from contemporaneous acts like Roxy Music, Heart, and, indeed, the real Fleetwood Mac, was also stellar.
