The Silver Lining: Volume 22
Musings on living the good life: food, culture, art, and products designed to inspire. Top picks from me to you, every Thursday.
Top Tracks
Every once and awhile I uncover an interesting mystery in the weekly research for Top Tracks. That’s the case for our first cut this week, “You’ve Got a Woman” from Lion:
Strangely, Lion seems to have recorded only two total tracks in its brief history as a band back in ‘75. To be honest I could hardly find anything about them online, besides this brief write-up:
Drummer Peter de Leeuwe, departing from the symphonic leanings of Dutch prog-fixtures Ekseption, penned ‘You’ve Got a Woman’ in 1975, layering syncopated explosions of hand-claps, vibraslap and slick drum work with neutron-star density, with super-producer Hans van Hemert nearly bursting Glenn Robles’ vocals through the fore.
Chicago-based band Whitney covered the song in 2017, much in the same instrumentation as its original. Unsolved mystery notwithstanding, Lion is a gem worth celebrating.
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Next, something new called “Rare Air” from Midlife:
The song is the first single lifted from their forthcoming six-track sophomore album ‘Automatic’ due out September 18th. We touched briefly on Midlife back in Volume 7:
Mildlife, a 4-some from Melbourne, wrote the original version of the song (which is well worth a listen) for their album Phase in 2017. I read an article that referred to their genre as ‘Space Kraut Jazz’, and while I’m not quite sure what that means, it certainly sounds cool.
Still not sure what Space Kraut Jazz is, but I’m into everything about this song and excited for September!
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Here’s a little something from Italian duo Dumbo Gets Mad called “Makes You Fly”, which I discovered on this Nice Guys Playlist:
Anthony Fantano of NPR sums the sound up well in his review:
The Italian duo Dumbo Gets Mad specializes in psychedelics for the sober, bringing experimentation together with detailed pop songwriting. Keeping track of every subtle texture that flows through their work is harder than it sounds: The instrumentation comes on easily enough, but it's not long before the music develops into a series of different phaser effects, distortions, and reverberations.
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We’re in the early stages of a quarantine Sopranos binge, and “I Feel Free” came on as the end credits rolled for Season 1’s 12th episode. This classic from Cream is your bonus track this week:
A fun anecdote from Al Kooper’s Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards details Cream's American debut in March of ‘67. Kooper recounts an exchange between himself and Cream member Ginger Baker:
"What do you think of America so far?" Baker replied, "How the f--k should I know? I've only been 'ere thirty-five f--king minutes, 'aven't I?" Kooper reports that their relationship went uphill from there: "By the last night of the show, we were throwing eggs and whipped cream at each other, that old American rock 'n' roll ritual that denotes mutual respect."
I love me some British profanity.
Artist Date
David Bell, the owner of Art Gallery Visitor Welcome Center in MacArthur Park, closed his space just before lockdown (unrelated to the pandemic). Enter John Burtle, artist and creator of Arm Gallery: a 2.5 x 5.5 inch tattooed rectangle on his arm that he’s been ‘operating’ since 2007.
Burtle reached out to Bell, inviting him to curate Arm Gallery’s programming for the year. As in, curate the group of artists who would create their art…on Burtle’s arm. No, I’m not making this stuff up:
Hold on II by Xinyue Yan (@milaxinyue ), Oil On Canvas.
Lindsay Preston Zappas’s write-up on Art Gallery dives a few layers deeper with Bell, focusing in on the current show by artists Victor Yañez-Lazcano and Livien Yin. For this exhibition, Burtle applies SPF 50 within the “gallery space” on his arm and a strong tanning oil around the gallery:
Bell explained that the work references Coco Chanel’s popularization of tanning oil in the late 1920s. Bell told me, “It is essentially like blackface, right? Like white people wearing brown skin or tanned skin as the ideal, yet still discriminating against anyone with brown skin.” Over the next two weeks, Burtle’s arm will continue to shift tonally. The gallery will remain pure white, while the remaining arm becomes a bronzed brown.
Victor Yañez-Lazcano & Livien Yin, “Have it Both Ways: Sublime Bronze SPF 50” (2020), self-tanning lotion & sunscreen.
Barefoot Contessa Bootcamp SKU of the Week
Combing these two sections this week, and you’ll soon see why!
Grateful for Nicolle, who shared OM SÒM with me, a newly launched company selling “starters” — pantry staples conveniently packaged as a shortcut to making classic Southeast Asian dishes.
Each Omsom starter packs all the aromatics, sauces, and seasonings you need, which if you’ve ever tried your hand at an authentic recipe you’ll know can be a multi-stop grocery sojourn (if you’re even lucky enough to have great ethnic food supermarkets in your neighborhood).
OM SÒM was founded by sisters Vanessa and Kim Pham, who explain a bit more about the company:
Om Som is a Vietnamese phrase meaning noisy, rambunctious, and riotous. Most often used by parents (hint: ours) to scold unruly, raucous children in the back of the car. We started Omsom to bring proud, loud Asian flavors to your fingertips any day of the week, sitting in your pantry right between the tomato sauce and olive oil.
In our past lives, we cut our teeth in startups and management consulting. We returned to our roots to finally build the company of our dreams — one that proudly reclaims and celebrates the multitudes to be found in Asian flavors, stories, and communities.
Vanessa and Kim sound like total badasses, and I can’t wait for my Sampler pack to arrive next week and take their product for a spin.
Contains 6 starters total. Each starter serves 2-3. $29, ships starting next week.
Social Action
After the devastating decision from ICE on Monday that would strip foreign college students of their visas if the courses they take this fall are entirely online, there’s been a wellspring of solidarity to brainstorm ways to support impacted students.
Community Equity has started a grassroots effort to consolidate resources, including creating new classes that could meet semi-regularly in person to satisfy the ICE’s new requirements.
If you have family or friends impacted by this policy, share these resources widely with your network!
Social Starlette(s)
Larry!!!
Ain’t it the truth:
This Dad gave me all the feels:
Remember that incredible NASA launch a few weeks back? Talk about a great window seat…
Everyone has had to pivot in the time of COVID, even our friends seeking confession:
To all the Gamers out there, stay the course:
That’s it for Volume 22. New issues of The Silver Lining drop weekly on Thursdays.
Comments, questions, tips?
Send a letter to the editor –– Scott Silver:
scott@thesilverlining.la / @thesilverlining.la