You give me fever

Well, somebody gave me fever. Nasty, spiky, unpredictable fever, the kind that literally makes my teeth chatter in the night, two nights running. This isn’t Miss Peggy Lee fever, this is more like The Cramps’ cover (Songs The Lord Taught Us — the BEST free album I ever got, which should say something about what my record connections were like way back when — although this album is utterly classic), dark, slow, scary. This started with a little sickness last Thursday and Friday, and then Saturday and much of Sunday I felt fine — biked a mess of miles both days, and went to a great three-year-old’s birthday party out at Indian Ladder Farms (the party was supreme, but my god the people that flock to these places in the fall — don’t even get me started, that’s another rant). That night I started to sink into misery, and thought maybe I’d let myself get a little cold during the day, but then the teeth chattering thing started (can you still get wind-up chattering teeth? Yes, you can.). I thought, “Oh, goodie, Playstation games for me!” but I didn’t have the energy to hold the controller. I did finish both books I was working on, though. “The Nanny Diaries” was excellent, though I felt the ending could have been stronger (and will be if they make it a movie, I’m sure). The other book was “Rock ‘n’ Roll – An Unruly History,” the potentially deadly companion volume to an old PBS history of rock (so imagine), but it turns out the book is excellent. Robert Palmer (not the dead singer) focuses on the few trendsetters and changepoints in rock, and it all comes together quite nicely.

Got the new discs by both Elvis and the Hives, but haven’t really had a chance to give either more than a cursory listen. Suddenly have a jones for Jonathan Richman, years and years and years after a friend tried to turn me on to him (I’m like that — music needs to come at the right time in my life, or it’ll just have to wait). The Palmer book rekindled my interest in Stax/Volt music (always simmering just below the surface), so I need to pull out that 9-disc box set and make myself a couple of discs of the highlights. (One of the most impressive things about Palmer was that he understood the difference between Motown, which was really aimed at a white audience, and Stax, which was not. Many rock writers fall so far under the spell of Berry Gordy that they barely notice Stax. Stax led to funk, and Motown led to pure pop. Nothing wrong with that, but there’s a real underappreciation for the importance of Stax.)

I’d just better stop now.