Ben Arthur

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Stuff I'm Thinking About - August 29, 2025

Townes Van Zandt, Flyin' Shoes (Austin Music Network Studios, Austin, TX, 1995) -- heard this version at a thrift store over at Opry Mills the other day and it absolutely floored me. I talked to the nice man at the register about the performance, which was a few years before he passed (thank u for the discount btw :D)...Townes' time in Nashville has always astounded me and this song is just incredible...

Randy Travis, Storms of Life (Warner Records, 1986) -- back in Nashville means COUNTRY MUSIC: tons of Randy Travis, Gary Stewart, The Judds, etc.

Yo La Tengo, Big Day Coming - Live Acoustic (from Extra Painful, 2014) -- I saw YLT in Chicago and hearingthis song live fixed me... other highlights include Ira falling down onto his keyboard during Mr. Tough and not missing a beat, incredible version of False Alarm, Blue Line Swinger, and The Summer

Fishmans, Backbeat ni Nokkatte (from Uchū Nippon Setagaya, 1997) -- really any summer-y song with dub drums: see Cleaners From Venus, Joy Division, PiL, The Pop Group) (OR for actual dub, King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown, LKJ's Dread Beat And Blood, and Prince Far I)

Late 90's John Fahey Bootlegs (Dutch Radio, 1999)

This old newsreel of Elizabeth Cotton playing for a bunch of elementary schoolers in Portland (recorded by Bill Fisher, 1978)

The Lemonheads, It's A Shame About Ray (Fire Records, 1992)

Richard Buckner, Impasse (Merge Records, 2002)

Julio Cortazar, In The Name of Bobby (New Yorker, 1979)

John Updike, The Happiest I've Been (originally published in the New Yorker, 1959)

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