Friday, June 13, 2008

TVD's Weekend Shots

Dryer sheets. You'd think that'd be an odd trigger to remind you of your pop, but dryer sheets do it to me every time. I guess dad had a way with the wash, he did.

Last January I found myself replacing the light bulb in the long, narrow walk-in closet that he shared with my mom in their home back in New Jersey. Her stuff is still on the right, and although dad passed away in September of '06, his clothes are still hanging there on the left, washed and pressed and hung with his loving meticulousness he showered upon everything. There was too, the smell of the dryer sheets. Bounce.

I was thinking then and there that I had no idea how long these clothes will remain here and brushed through them for some things I should keep for myself that mom wouldn't miss. I slid a belt out from a pair of jeans that dad always wore--almost a trademark in a way. There were ties too, the skinnier ones back in indie-vogue again and hanging on a first or second grade-era Father's Day gift--a stained piece of wood with prongs over which the ties hung and above the prongs in the wood I had chiseled 'TIES'. I ran my fingers over the coarse, chiseled letters--the adult designer in me wincing at the poor typography. But there it was and there it stayed since that long ago Sunday.

After big meals my dad would often talk about other famous big meals he'd eaten. "Oh, when your mother made that lasagna..." Soon would come the stories of when he as a teenager, and then later into his twenties, would go see the famous Big Bands of the day--Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman--in the ballrooms in Clifton and Paterson, New Jersey where he grew up. His misty excitement for that time rivaled my own enthusiasm back then for KISS, or Queen, or the Beatles. The energy was the same even if the tools happened to be different. So, in memory of my dad, some of his favorites from that Big Band Era.

This Father's Day I'll be home doing wash.

(Update: ...AND remembering Tim Russert.)


Glen Miller - The Chesterfield Show (Mp3)
Count Basie and His Orchestra - April In Paris (Mp3)
Benny Goodman - Jersey Bounce (Mp3)
Woody Herman and His Orchestra - Everywhere (Mp3)
Tommy Dorsey - None But the Lonely Heart (Mp3)
Artie Shaw and His Orchestra - Melancholy Mood (Mp3)
Glenn Miller - Moonlight Serenade (Mp3)
Count Basie and His Orchestra - Softly With Feeling (Mp3)
Benny Goodman - Body And Soul (Mp3)
Woody Herman and His Orchestra - Summer Sequence (Part 2) (Mp3)
Tommy Dorsey with Frank Sinatra - I'll Be Seeing You (Mp3)
Artie Shaw and His Orchestra - Begin the Beguine (Mp3)

TVD | Friday @ Random

Close to seven years ago now I started my own business--a little three man/one woman advertising agency based in Bethesda, Maryland. And as luck would have it, the doors were first open a mere three weeks after the tragedy of the 9/11 attacks--also known as: the worst possible time to go out on one's own selling the very abstract notion of 'advertising' and 'marketing' to shell shocked industries reeling in their marketing budgets. I lasted two years while two of the partners have continued to press on.

So, see all those advertisers over there to the left? They're one of the main reasons this blog exists. What I wouldn't have given at the time when I had my business for some pixel-happy blogger to come along and champion my efforts or cheerlead for my success story--be it for my ad agency, or now for the vinyl medium I love, or for the success of the mom-and-pop, brick-and-mortar record stores I adore who advertise in that left-hand column over there. It's that simple--the TVD formula is: if you like the Mp3s posted or want the LP we've been discussing in some thread here, you know right where to turn and where these can be had.

Which is a roundabout way of welcoming a new advertiser and supporter of this blog; Renascent - a London-based record label who've reissued some of the best 80's music around--The Sound, The Comsat Angels, The House of Love...and the list goes on. Atypical to this blog's mission, their reissues are CD-based, but their taste is impeccable and we're thrilled to have their support and to be able to offer ours in return. So, below for your Random Friday is a sample of some of the better bands of the era--and now you know right where to go to hear and buy more.

See? The formula really is that simple.


The Sound - Sense Of Purpose.mp3
The Comsat Angels - Now I Know.mp3
The Wild Swans - Revolutionary Spirit.mp3
The House of Love - Shine On.mp3
The Woodentops - You Make Me Feel.mp3