Only Stone and Steel

I thought it was going to be the case after seeing Morrissey live, but darn it all if "Years of Refusal" isn't an excellent album. I've had to do a bit of driving for work lately, and I can't seem to eject it to make room for listening to a few other newbies (including The Veils, which is saying a lot). This is a great song and possibly the most well-known from the album, yet it doesn't tower over the others in goodness. I just can't quickly find any other vids of good quality. It's one of those rare albums where I don't find myself wanting to skip over a single song.

I've been tres busy lately with work, visitors, canine anxiety attacks (delicate flower foo), fuming over unjust news, and other general life stuff, hence the blabsence. And not sure yet when things will clear and I'll be done taking pause. Time'll tell.

"It Must Be Awful For You, Is It?"

A day late and a dollar short on this one, but thanks to a friend who hooked me up last minute with a ticket to Morrissey at the Aragon Ballroom, I'm now really excited about his newest album, Years of Refusal. Oh how the pompadour and panache were flowing, and I drank it up. He didn't do too many Smiths songs, but that was actually fine by me since most of the new stuff is instantly appealing. He did do Ask, among a couple other oldies, and let me tell you that man's live voice still sounds precisely as it did back in this vid from '87. The devil only knows the lengths to which he's gone, but he sure has taken care of those pipes. To the benefit of all.

It would have been a perfect evening if only the kind fellow who invited me along didn't end the evening by confessing his issues with women c/o growing up with a schizophrenic mother. Apparently we are landmines of sheer terror to him. By "we" I mean all women who walk the earth (and furrow into the ground waiting to explode before unsuspecting men). Then again, the sentiment was perhaps a bit more fitting than I initially realized coming on the tails of a Morrissey concert and all.

The vid here is an entertaining interview of Morrissey by Russel Brand. Then again, it's impossible not to be entertained by an interview with Morrissey. I recently read one where he was asked what was playing on his iPod, and he responded "I don't have an iPod. I have a gramaphone that runs on sand mixed with water." What a lovely man.