Art is the music we make from the bewildered cry of being alive. ~Maria Popova
01 Mar 2013 Leave a comment
in Video of the Week Tags: born and raised, david a. smith, john mayer
(Reprinted from Open Culture)
![b1 [Converted]](https://edcyphers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/mayer.jpg)
This eighteen minute documentary takes you inside the work of David A. Smith, an English artist who specializes in “high-quality ornamental hand-crafted reverse glass signs and decorative silvered and gilded mirrors.” (Got that? You may want to read that last part again.) In something of a departure from earlier projects, Smith designed an ornate “turn-of-the-century, trade-card styled album cover” for John Mayer’s album Born & Raised. His work is meticulous and exacting. And this “Behind The Scenes” film, complete with commentary from Mayer and Smith, captures the artist’s process in loving detail. Now please sit back and enjoy.
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The music of Mayer’s album is a perfect match for the art of Mr. Smith, and makes a great soundtrack for the film depicting his antiquated craft. If Mayer is smart he’ll keep this artisan on retainer and give all his future albums an unmistakable trademark style, as Yes did with Roger Dean and the Moody Blues with Phil Travers. That said I hope the job pays well; I can’t imagine many album covers have required more hours of painstaking work than this one did.
01 Mar 2013 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: over joy, steven page
Steven Page: “Over Joy” (2010)
Lest you dispute Steven Page’s credentials as perhaps pop’s most skilled purveyor of “dark bubblegum” since ABBA, check out “Over Joy” which might be the snappiest song about depression I’ve ever heard.
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2012/02/20/songs-you-may-have-missed-17/
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2016/04/07/songs-you-may-have-missed-581/
01 Mar 2013 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: clever girls like clever boys much more than clever boys like clever girls, pelle carlberg
Pelle Carlberg: “Clever Girls Like Clever Boys Much More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls” (2007)
Swede Pelle Carlberg has stumbled onto a general truth here: girls and guys are screening for slightly different things in the opposite sex. As entertainingly as he puts his idea across you’d think he’d have found a way to shorten the title.
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2012/02/27/songs-you-may-have-missed-29/
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2012/10/09/recommended-albums-26/
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2025/12/22/songs-you-may-have-missed-808/
28 Feb 2013 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: banda criolla, bomba te traigo yo, jose gonzalez
Jose Gonzalez and Banda Criolla: “Bomba Te Traigo Yo” (1994)
The song’s title translates as “I bring you Bomba” and it’s a celebration of the bomba style of party music, traditional in Puerto Rico and based on African rhythms. Acoustic guitar and cuatro (a native, guitar-like stringed instrument) create a buoyant blend in a song that speaks of the “delicious rhythm” of “the land where I was born”.
“Puerto Rico” means “rich port”. And the phrase certainly seems to apply to its music.
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2012/12/26/songs-you-may-have-missed-269/
28 Feb 2013 Leave a comment
in On a Lighter Note, Video of the Week Tags: capitol steps, take ten pills and you're fine
The Capitol Steps have been putting the mock in Democracy for over thirty years now. As songs and albums with titles like Take the Money and Run for President, Liberal Shop of Horrors and “Embattled Hymn of the Republicans” suggest, no one on either side of the proverbial aisle is safe from their razor-sharp skewering.
Here they take aim at the pill-pushing pharmaceutical companies.
Every Moment Has A Song 