Gentle, tuneful Record Club last evening. Several times, I've brought 'between' intending to play the sunspot piece but one thing you tend to do in these situations--appropriately--is to try and somehow fit your piece into whatever stream happens to develop. Now, if you only bring two, there's no option and usually that's what I do. But when one or both of the pieces I want most to play is fairly....extreme, I generally bring alternates.

Last night, I led off Round 1 and played Beefheart's "Nowadays a Woman's Gotta Hit a Man" from "Clear Spot", a guaranteed hit, what with that great shuffle beat, the funky horn section, etc. Fantastic piece, glad to have rediscovered it. Julia played a very fun, wacky piece by a band called Young Knives, my favorite of the set, but things were fairly smooth otherwise. Had I led off round 2, Rowe/Nakamura would've gone on, no question, but I ended up in the fifth slot, following another fun, strange number courtesy Nina by a duo from Lawrence, Kansas called Drakkar Sauna. The song was a kind of old-timey, rockabilly piece with religious connotations; then she revealed the title: "Mongrel of a Halfman Slave Bitch" heh.). The "between" track simply wouldn't have fit after that one, so I went with Robbie Basho's gorgeous, hauntingly odd "Salangadou", which I've since found out is an old Creole folk song.

Nayland closed the evening with a striking version of the "Cannon Song" sung by Ellen Greene, culled from a vinyl recording of the 1975 Public Theater production of Threepenny Opera.